


The Power to Survive

by Calliopinot



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Amsterdam, Angst, Awkward First Times, Bad People, Coming of Age, Crying, Effeminophobia, Emotional Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Gen, Good people, Growing Up, Homeless Youth, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Klok, Pre-Series, Rape/Non-con Elements, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Content, Sexual Economy, Sexual Violence, The American South, Virginity, empowerment, mild canon homophobia, shopping montage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-01-29 10:43:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12629268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calliopinot/pseuds/Calliopinot
Summary: Toki Wartooth has seen some things. The brutality that dwells within him was born in the snows outside Lillehammer. But it was nurtured in the intervening time, the space between there and here, when Toki was just a kid on the streets.





	1. Homestead (Prelude)

With any luck, not that luck was ever on his side, his father wouldn’t notice his absence until well beyond daybreak. He had been planning for weeks, since the day he watched that beat-up classical guitar become so much kindling in the furnace, since his last trip to the punishment hole made him acutely aware, for the first time in his young life, that death was very much on the list of penalties for misbehavior.

The goats were all given extra fodder at dinnertime to hush their bleating in the morning. The cows were worked to the bone, extra milk let to drain into the gutter for the rats to enjoy. He didn’t care about wastefulness today.

Nothing could be done about the habits of roosters in advance of sunrise, so he took the axe to them. Toki needed all the time he could get.

After the nightly prayers were finished and the household grew still, Toki drew a rough-hewn rucksack from beneath a loose slat beside the pine straw mattress. In it were the “essentials” he’d already gathered for his flight – a single change of clothes, three carrots and a handful of raw oats he’d nicked from the horses last week, and a worn little bible, bookmarked in several spots with faded polaroids of the Reverend and Anja Wartooth.

He tossed in a glass bottle of raw milk before deciding it would jostle too much, then tiptoed, barefoot, to the door of the room where he slept. To call it his room would be a misnomer; nothing in or about this house was his. Nothing here was designed to give him any feeling of permanence, even things he handled every day, from the crude broom he used to sweep the snow to his own threadbare clothes. 

So it was with fear, but not much regret, that he slipped out into the blustery cold that night, guided only by starlight and a burning desire to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first attempt at multi-chapter. Don't worry, future chapters will be much meatier than this prelude. Feedback on pacing and structure GREATLY appreciated, as well as sweet notes about how much you LOVE IT ;)


	2. Drep Du Selv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the first chapter was such a tease, I'm posting the next one sooner than planned. The rest will be more reasonably spaced, and lengthier.

 

Toki was glad for the extra time he’d bought.

It took much longer to reach the outskirts of Lillehammer than he had initially figured. The handful of times he’d gone to town with his father had been on the back of a horse or sleigh. And as it happened, thin-soled cow hide was not the best material to sustain a 20-mile walk through the freezing night. The pain forced him to stop altogether by the time the first rays of sunlight glimmered over the horizon, but he would only allow himself a moment’s rest.

He had endured worse.

His feet were bleeding and raw when he made it to the dark little shop with the letters “DREP DU SELV” painted on the window. The combination of words was not a sentiment taught in any bible lesson, although the Good Book was very clear on the subject of suicide. Either way, Toki figured it was perhaps the least likely place his parents would come looking for him, if they were inclined to do so. Provided, of course, the surly shopkeep would take him in.

 

***

 

Runke Snogge was never much for charity. Letting that little fucker who tagged around with the backwoods priest goof off in his store was done out of pure masochism; pity was painful and therefore metal.

So it was with surprise greater than what he experienced at meeting a half-frozen lump of Toki Wartooth at his storefront that morning that he felt genuine concern at the boy’s woeful condition.

_What in the hell are you doing here?_ And then, quickly, _You’re getting blood all over my doorstep_. Which, when he thought about it, certainly upped his metal street cred, especially when that street contained a herring shop to one side and a ski outfitter to the other – not to mention the daintiest of _krumkake_ bakeries across the way.

Toki stirred. He was indeed leaking blood onto the music store’s flagstone walkway. In the cold of night, he hadn’t noticed the jostling rucksack reopening freshly scabbed-over wounds on his back. He picked at his t-shirt apologetically, but there wasn’t much for it. The kid was beat, in every sense of the word, and if Runke didn’t get him inside, he’d have one cold dead kid on his hands – decidedly more trouble than he was at present.

 

***

 

_Thank you so much._ Runke wrinkled his nose as he peeled the ruined garments from Toki’s fragile frame. Such politeness, even in the face of death.

Getting rid of blood-soaked clothing seemed to make sense in the moment, but now Runke puzzled over how to get a half-naked Toki from the store threshold into the little back room where he himself camped out when his folks were being unbearable. He was totally, definitely going to move out, once his band started landing gigs, once black metal asserted itself as the right and natural emperor of music, once people outside of the frigid north had actually _heard_ of black metal, once…

Runke shook his head clear of the excuses he’d built up as a protective wall for going on six years, and scanned his dark shop for ideas. He was absolutely _not_ going to carry the kid princess-style; that would be gayer than taking care of him already fucking was. Besides, he would run the risk of ruining his vintage Samael Salvation ’96 Tour tee, although blood _would_ be a decent accessory. 

_Not fucking Toki blood._

_Haha! ‘Tokiblod.’_ The kid was delirious.

_Here, step on this._ Runke spotted one of those Christmas gift catalogs in the pile of junk mail by the front door and ripped out a few pages. Toki complied, leaving two bloody footprints on the doormat behind him. He’d planned to lay the pages out across the floor and get Toki to hop from one to the next – what kid doesn’t enjoy a game of “The Floor Is Hot Lava” – but the pages clung to the sticky gore under Toki’s feet like makeshift snowshoes.

Runke mentally calculated how much of his grain alcohol stash he’d need to sacrifice to cleaning up this kid’s wounds as he helped him shuffle into the tiny makeshift apartment space.

_Sit_. Toki collapsed onto a stack of boxes that evidently served as lounge chair, desk, and dining table. He did Runke a small favor in peeling off the catalog pages, but it was mainly out of curiosity. Most of the time Toki’s flesh cleaved in places he couldn’t see. Watching the blood gurgle out from beneath split callouses on his heels and toes was utterly fascinating.

_Don’t fucking pick at that! Jesus kid._ Runke turned to him with a handful of towels and an unmarked glass bottle, from which he took a long pull before setting down to work.

_This is going to hurt. Don’t freak out._

 

***

 

Toki would never tell Runke Snogge his affinity for the man was due in large part to the fact that his supposedly brutal black metal makeup reminded him so much of the face paint his beloved clowns wore. He watched Runke apply it every morning with a placid smile Runke found creepy, yet endearing.

The pair had been sharing the cramped flat behind Drep Du Selv for the better part of a month. His mom was being an unholy bitch anyway, Runke told himself, so it was just as well to be out of the house.

Runke was surprised by how quickly Toki healed; he wondered, though never aloud, just how accustomed the kid was to near-death experiences. Once he was back on his feet, Toki insisted on helping around the store. Runke probably would have made him earn his keep anyway, but the way the boy seemed almost itching to complete mindless, menial tasks kept the subject at bay.

_I saw your dad in town today._

_Oh._ The Wartooths didn’t venture into Lillehammer proper, or its surrounding villages for that matter, too frequently. Dens of iniquity, they considered any place with population density greater than two. As soon as he could count to three, Toki became painfully aware of what that meant for the Wartooth household.

_Was he looking for me?_

_Hard to tell._

_Yeah, he doesn’t talk much._

The shopkeep and his accidental ward sat in silence, eating cold soup out of a can on the floor of the tiny flat.

_I think I need to get out of Norway_.

Runke looked up at him. We all need to get out of Norway.

 

***

 

Runke Snogge was never much for charity. The _kroner_ he gave Toki was fair pay for decent work. The beat-up Gibson Flying V he gave Toki was a hand-me-down piece of shit he was going to throw away anyway, just like that garbage old grandpa’s guitar he’d given him last year. 

Setting Toki up with a cousin of his, a good enough guy who wouldn’t bitch too much about smuggling the boy on his fishing boat out of Oslo to Amsterdam – that was harder to explain away.

“Thanks you.”

_Yeah, get the fuck out of here kid. If I ever see your ass in this piece of shit town again you’d better be able to buy and sell this place, or I’ll know you really fucked up bad._

Toki just grinned at him like a moron, like a beaten down kid who was getting a second chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way I handle foreign languages is a little weird, but hopefully you can follow. I tried my best to be consistent with how I treated mutually intelligible dialogue vs. mixed languages and those -- including English, early on -- that my protagonist doesn't speak. All in an effort to make it as readable as possible, and limit my trips to Google Translate :)


	3. Red Light, Green Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki arrives in Amsterdam, where for the first time in his journey -- but certainly not the last time -- he finds himself without a home, and short on options.

In Amsterdam, Toki learned what it meant to starve.

 

He had never been fed well, by any stretch of the imagination. But the fine line between hunger and starvation was evidently toed on the tin plates of salted meat and boiled root vegetables his parents granted him every few days. Here, he hadn’t even that.

Losing what little he’d eaten before departing Oslo over the side of the small fishing vessel didn’t help matters onshore. The North Sea was as choppy and frigid as it was vast and terrifying to young Toki. It forced him to spare awe at being so far from home, surrounded by water that wasn’t penned in by shores like the lakes he’d seen once as a child. 

Cousin Snogge had hoped to get at least a little deck mopping out of the kid – Runke sold him as diligent if dull – but six hours of dry heaving off the starboard bow was a worse reaction than even the greenest of greenhorns had ever had. So like so much toss-back, little Toki was eventually discarded onto port with nothing more than his guitar case and the reek of vomit and fishmeal to offer the fine people of Holland.

***

Dehydrated and disoriented, Toki did his best to take stock of this strange new town made of water streets and bicycles. Fear crept into his chest with its vise grip. He didn’t have a plan, had never really had a plan since clumsily executing the one that freed him from his father’s rule how many weeks ago. 

All he knew now was he needed to eat. Eat to survive. Survive to figure out what to do next.

But he was alone. So crushingly alone. Even on the roiling boat there had been people who knew his name, or at least his face, or at least had an idea of who he was and why he was there. Here he was no one, and nowhere.

Without realizing it, Toki had unsheathed the worn old guitar from its case and begun playing. When the sensation of his fingers flying across the fretboard caught up to his brain, he noticed he was no longer on the verge of tears. He could barely hear the notes under the din of the city around him, but he didn’t care. His back found the sturdiness of a brick wall reassuring, and he slid down, eyes drifting closed, sighing almost contentedly as he played out his terror. 

Clinking metal shook Toki from his reverie. He looked down to see a handful of copper coins sitting in the guitar case before him. Glancing up did not reveal their source. Tourists and locals alike continued to buzz by him as though he didn’t exist. But as he sat there, entranced by his own playing, music he couldn’t even hear but for in his heart, more change dropped into his case, flung his way in fits and starts by strangers who did a thing by habit or in service of their good deed for the day.

Toki’s fingers ached before long. His body was full of lactic acid and salt, and he was in desperate need of a decent meal and a bath. Scooping out the bounty of coins – and even a few bills! – before gently replacing his guitar, Toki felt a little giddy. He had no idea what this funny money even was, but it was more plentiful than the handful of _kroner_ he blew making his way from Lillehammer to Oslo, and more was always better. 

***

Toki wandered the streets of Amsterdam at dusk, painfully aware of both the gnawing in his stomach and the putrid stench wafting from him. He was hesitant to enter any place that sold food; he could barely stand the smell himself and was certain he’d be turned away before parting with any of the Dutch _guilder_ burning a hole in his pocket.

So the first order of business would be getting clean. Half tempted to just dive into one of these stone-lined rivers, Toki pressed on in search of a hostel or public bathroom or broken pipe he could stand under for a couple minutes. 

The nonsense words written all over the shops and buildings here definitely didn’t help his quest. Toki had never gotten much of an education in geography – or world languages, for that matter – but he assumed being so relatively close to Norway, they’d speak Bokmål in Amsterdam, or at least Danish or Swedish or _something_ he’d read or heard before.

When he saw the word “sauna” he was awash with relief. In fact, there were saunas up and down this little alley into which he’d wandered, so he took a bit of time finding the one least likely to kick him out, which naturally, although not to his eyes, was the seediest one. The one with a peeling laminated price list affixed to the door with yellowing scotch tape, and spray paint blacking out the windows.

***

Having deposited a fistful of carefully counted coins into a bin at the unmanned front desk – this place seemed as much on the honor system as anything – Toki grabbed a towel (grey, whether by design or by overall dinginess, Toki didn’t care; it smelled clean) and ventured through the double doors leading deeper into the establishment.

The sharp chemical smell of chlorine and something distinctly more human hit Toki in the face beyond the doors, along with a flush of heat that wasn’t entirely attached to the steam and hot, dry air escaping from behind yet more heavy doors. Laid out before him, in varying states of undress and in varying throes of sweat-producing activities, were about two dozen men of all shapes and sizes, grunting and groaning and pushing and pulling and paying no mind to the new addition to the room. Toki was the youngest by at least a decade, and definitely the only one never to have seen another man’s penis – before now.

Knowing he walked into something intimately private and yet unabashedly public, terribly intriguing and yet deathly sinful, Toki urged his feet forward to the closest, least occupied space he could find. At least the bathroom had stalls. Toki collapsed onto the toilet seat and slammed the flimsy door shut behind him. The vestiges of shame and religious teachings that had been literally whipped into him for 14 years took Herculean effort to overcome; the ancient bible and photos of his parents he inexplicably still carried seemed to scream at him from where they sat snugly beside his guitar.

But he wasn’t there anymore, in that torture chamber he once called home. Whatever was going on outside this toilet stall he could handle in stride. He was starving, he was dirty, he was free.

*** 

Toki steeled himself before reemerging from the loo. A sauna session sounded like heaven, but right now he needed to find a hot stream of water and some soap. Fortunately, the showers were just outside and to the left of the bathroom. Unfortunately, they did not offer private accommodations.

Toki chose a spot in the corner, the better to keep an eye on his one worldly possession. Then, whether out of modesty or practicality he couldn’t be sure, he stepped into the steaming water fully clothed, little handmade cap and all. It was the only set of clothing he had left, since a well-meaning but shortsighted Runke Snogge had thrown away the bloody rags in which Toki had turned up at Drep Du Selv, and they needed cleaning as much as he did. He ignored the looks he engendered as he pumped body wash, shampoo, and conditioner from the trio of wall dispensers into his hand and slathered the whole mess onto his face and head, working down his torso over and under the shirt, then to his lower body in like fashion.

“Het zou beter werken als je die weg hebt genomen, weet je dat.”(1) Toki gave a start but purposefully ignored the deep voice and strange words he couldn’t understand. They weren’t meant for him, he decided, as he dipped his head under the water.

“Ik zou je daarbij kunnen helpen.”(2) Those words were much harder to ignore, pressed as they were to the shell of his ear. Toki froze as a hand not his own grazed his abdomen, fingers tugging at the button of his pants. An attempt to see what, or who, was happening yielded only an eyeful of stinging toiletries.

“Knulle!” 

“Agh! Krijg de kolere, jungen!”(3)

The obscenity, or perhaps the inadvertent elbow to his would-be molester’s chin, was enough to get the man to back off.

But Toki’s guard was up, and it stayed up as he toweled off, and in the sauna down the hall, where he had the brilliant idea of sitting for a few minutes to dry his clothes – nevermind that he was the only one, again, wearing any.

Whether it was because of the thoroughly relaxing dry heat or the surreptitious glances he cast at the couple across from him, doing things to each other with their mouths that left Toki’s agape with wonder, Toki left the spa feeling more serene than he had in days. A grumble in his stomach reminded him the lightheadedness may owe account to eating nothing for two days, so he set out to rectify that.

***

Every restaurant window was dark, every cart boarded up, “GESLOTEN” admonishing him in angry red neon everywhere he turned. How could there not be food available now? He hadn’t dawdled in the spa for too long, had he…?

Toki aimlessly followed the red signs, hoping to eventually find a green one. Before he knew it he was adrift in a sea of red light, and a hunger unrelated to the one he’d been feeling all day crawled into his core.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) It would work better if you took those off, you know.
> 
> (2) I could help you with that.
> 
> (3) Fuck you too, kid.
> 
> Translations are approximate. Dutch is a beast.


	4. Kamer Rouge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki finds a job, and a home, in Amsterdam. Then he starts to get the wanderlust. But there are more ways than cash to punch a ticket to America...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning for non-con (oral) at the end.

This place was alive.

Toki was suddenly much less interested in the fried fish sandwich he’d traded for a couple of _guilder_  than the windows upon windows of women bearing more skin than he’d ever seen in his life before.

This evening was verging on sensory overload. He sat with his legs dangling over the side of a canal opposite a particularly enticing shop and watched the pretty redhead on display while he munched his dinner. At least, he thought she was a redhead. Everything was bathed in fluorescent red light. It was almost nauseating. Almost.

The redhead curled her finger at Toki, and he could feel his cheeks flush a shade not dissimilar to the light under which she danced. Stuffing the rest of his sandwich into his face, he bolted upright, nearly teetering into the murky water below. His feet, for lack of a more flexible appendage, took him in the direction of that enticing young woman. He was barely aware of his movements, only that he needed to find a footbridge and get across, fast.

By the time he made it to the shop, the object of his attention had gone from the window, replaced by an equally semi-clad and beautiful young lady, but one who didn’t grab his attention like the redhead had done. Frustrated, he figured he’d ask after her inside.

A bouncer saw to it the babyfaced Norwegian didn’t set two feet into that establishment.

Okay, so this was going to be another of those places where Toki wasn’t totally wanted. But _he_ wanted to be here, he decided, so he’d have to go at it a different way.

Venturing deeper into the streets full of saunas had proven fruitful, if frightening; he was able to get cleaned up with only mild harassment at a place that didn’t turn him away outright. So Toki wound his way further into the red light district, away from the crowds and toward a shop that could use a red light bulb replacement or two.

_Kamer Rouge_ were the words plastered on the side of this building.

Here he sat in observation. The clientele that popped surreptitiously in and out reminded him of the sort of man he’d encountered in the bathhouse – if decidedly more heterosexual. The women in the windows were less beautiful but no less appealing to Toki. He could work with this.

 

***

 

A grumbling stomach and sharp pain roused him suddenly. Toki blinked, aware of daylight hours but not much else. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but then, that’s how exhaustion works.

Rubbing the hard line gouged in his neck by the plastic crate he’d evidently used as a pillow, Toki slowly regained his bearings. He couldn’t tell what time it was, but the sex shop had lost its crimson allure from the previous night. Without darkness and leering strangers, it looked like a normal storefront. Much more approachable, Toki thought.

Endgame decided by the paucity of cash currently in his possession, Toki stalked around the rear of the building. He felt kinship with the preponderance of working-class types in the alley, cleaning their establishments from the previous night’s debauchery, and hoped making himself useful would at least earn him a few _guilder_ , if not a coveted invitation into the shop he’d been eyeing.

The back door to the Kamer Rouge popped open as if on cue, and a greasy, black-clad barkeep tumbled out. He, too, seemed surprised and a bit offended by the presence of the sun, shooing daylight away with a wave of his hand as he licked the end of a hand-rolled cigarette.

The bartender patted down the pockets of his funny half-apron then withdrew a match, striking it with his thumbnail and inhaling deeply. Toki watched as he took long drag after long drag, eyes growing redder and blearier as he did. The kid wondered obliquely why a regular cigarette would cause a man to sway like he was drunk, but decided to take the opportunity for what it was.

_Hi! I’m Toki. I need cash. I can help you with cleaning and stuff._

A blank stare met his entreaty, followed by riotous laughter. Toki wasn’t sure whether to be frightened or affronted, so he opted to repeat his offer instead, this time using what little English Runke Snogge imparted upon him during their weeks together – and a lot of pantomime.

“I helps you. Need money.”

“Jesus kid! What’s with the fucking hat?” The bartender’s non sequitur question was punctuated by giggles and gesticulations of his own. Toki looked at him blankly for a moment before removing his little blue cap and approaching slowly, holding it out as an offering.

“No, no, I don’t want— what the fuck language was that even?” He took one last drag on the joint, contemplated holding it out for the weird kid with the weird hat but just dissolved into another fit of giggles and unintelligible muttering about a goddamn useless goddamn linguistics degree.

Toki had no idea what this guy was going on about. He was about to cut his losses and move on when he noticed the barkeep holding the back door open and nodding inside. Toki flashed him just enough of a shit-eating grin to make the guy wonder just what the hell he was getting himself into.

 

***

 

“This mop is gonna be your new best friend, _begrijpen?_ You’re lucky our last barback just offed himself or else I’d’ve told you to fuckin’ book it. I’ll be cutting you in out of my take like I did him so obviously this is all under the table. Shit, this whole goddamn place is under the table.”

Toki had been in the Kamer Rouge bartender’s employ for less than five minutes and was already confident he was in over his head. But then a scent like spun sugar wafted in over the stale beer and general earthiness that clogged the air.

“ _Wie is dit?_  You adopting strays again, Connor?” (1)

In the daylight and dingy bar – and under several layers more clothes – she was far less enticing than she had been the night prior. But Toki found himself drawn to the redhead from the window all over again.

That sugary sweet scent owed itself in part to the fresh _stroopwafel_ she was munching for breakfast. She peeked into the little brown bag and withdrew one more, chucking the rest in Toki’s direction. “Markus always giving me extras.”

To the bartender named Connor: “This one has home or I going to put him up too?” Connor shrugged his ignorance.

“ _Groot_.” The redhead surveyed her new foundling with an eyeroll, pausing for a moment at something she couldn’t quite place. “Send him up when he done with chores. If this one overdose _Ik zweer tot God_ I cleaning it up with your tongue.” (2)

Connor shrugged, declining the argument.

“ _Ik heet_ Tilly. Tilly Spijker.” She addressed Toki, almost as an afterthought. Toki looked at her with his head cocked to the side, like an elkhound puppy. “Erm, my name is Tilly.”

Toki just shook his head at her. He realized with a slight shock of panic that he would have a lot to learn.

 

***

 

He fell into the routine easily enough.

Kamer Rouge was a make-yourself-scarce kind of place, so Toki did most of his work during the day, when tasks involved hauling last night’s unspeakable filth and restocking beer kegs and condoms. It was unglamorous labor, but what little value he’d been allowed to believe he possessed was borne out in such work.

Toki came to understand that Tilly was in charge in some way; he suspected she owned the building by how she seemed to have keys to every room in it, although he never saw her around at night. The nights were populated by four other girls and countless men whose eyes he tried never to meet. The girls didn’t speak to him, but their faces became familiar, and they would smile at him when he entered their little booths to change their sheets or sneak them a secret shot of vodka. Connor the bartender didn’t even begrudge him the few extra _guilder_ he knew the girls tipped him for the booze.

Tilly and Connor talked enough at him that he began to pick up English, albeit heavily accented from the former and sloppy American from the latter. The bartender – who had less of a linguistics degree and more of a “knack for languages, you get me?” – along with a thrift store dictionary helped Toki translate to and from Norwegian when necessary. 

He slept six nonconsecutive hours a day on the couch in Tilly’s apartment upstairs. Every time he woke, Toki would restore the sofa to pristine sitting condition and pack his handful of belongings into his guitar case, which he always set just outside the door. All of it was in the extreme likelihood he would not be welcomed back.

And so six months passed Toki by in Amsterdam, in obscurity. He couldn’t say in happiness; he wasn’t quite sure what happiness was, but he certainly hadn’t gone for anywhere close to this length of time in his life absent pain or fear. His guitar gave him comfort and purpose in those blank moments that his father would have filled with religion, or that the men in the tiny rooms filled with what the men in the tiny rooms did.

“What are you doing here?” Tilly asked him, apropos of nothing, one Sunday morning.

“Connor says I has the, um, _ferie_. _Vakantie._ Cans make cleans fors you?” (3)

“I mean why you in Amsterdam? You not come here for cleaning up jizz in back rooms of sex shop rest of your life.”

Toki looked at her quizzically. She hated that look.

“What’s ‘jizz’?”

Tilly saw the youth in his face for the first time. It was easy to miss under the layers of scars and street-hardened toughness and general grime.

That Sunday, Toki received his first course in sex ed.

 

***

 

Toki liked Tilly. And he liked Connor too. And he liked the girls who danced in the windows and disappeared into their rented rooms with strange men. But it wasn’t enough.

“I’s ams goings to United States of America." 

He announced it one morning after chores. Cap in hand, guitar slung over his shoulder, he looked almost apologetic.

Tilly couldn’t help but smile matronly at him. He hated that smile.

“How you getting to America, Toki?”

Toki hadn’t puzzled _that_ far out. He just knew he didn’t want to be in Amsterdam anymore, and if he wasn’t going to be in Amsterdam, he may as well not be in Europe at all. Plus, the whole “Land of Opportunity” thing folks were always going on about the U.S. sounded pretty neat.

“I works.”

“You works now. How much you have saved?”

Toki counted in his head. “Two hundred forty seven _guilder_.” He couldn’t help but beam. It was more money than he ever knew even existed on Earth.

“We go through about 2,000 _guilder_ worth of booze a night. And that’s on a weeknight.” Connor didn’t mean to deflate him so thoroughly. But the kid needed a little perspective.

“Look, I help you. I have friend… well, customer. He runs ship out of Rotterdam to Charleston. Owes me. Now you owe me. Deal?”

All Toki needed to hear was “help.”

“ _Ja_!”

 

***

 

Approaching the vessel in Rotterdam was intimidating to say the least. Toki’s previous experience with watercraft on open ocean had gone over less than smoothly, and this boat was colossal compared to the last.

Sensing the fear emanating from her passenger, Tilly offered some words of calm.

“Do not worry. Ship is so big, is like city at sea. You will be fine. Ah, here is Gustav now.”

The sailor called Gustav exchanged a few words with Tilly, who handed over Toki’s bounty in _guilder_ and sealed their arrangement with a kiss on the cheek. He beckoned to his cargo, who said goodbye with an enthusiastic wave.

His enthusiasm waned as soon as he saw the boiler room that would pass for quarters for the next two weeks. It dissipated entirely when the sailor called Gustav joined him in the cramped space.

“Ah… thanks to you, sir—” Toki began in dismissal. Rough fingers squeezing his cheeks halted him midsentence.

A second hand clamping down on his trapezius muscle forced him to his knees.

“You want say thanks?” The sailor called Gustav unbuttoned his heavy canvas trousers. “Say thanks.”

Toki recognized this position from the men in the sauna and the women in the window. He had a slight, terrifying idea of what was expected of him. He just didn’t understand why.

As the gruff old deckhand violently plowed into his mouth, Toki couldn’t help but wonder if this is how Tilly earned the favor she paid forward to him. The thought brought him to tears worse than any merciless face fuck ever could.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Who is this?  
> (2) I swear to God  
> (3) Holiday (Norwegian, Dutch)
> 
> **If you want to know what "Kamer Rouge" means, I find Google rather helpful in situations like these. It's a multi-lingual play-on-words that's just as fucked up as you think.


	5. Antebellum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki makes it to America, but it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings for prostitution and sexual assault, and some violence.

Toki loved Charleston, in theory. 

The old architecture felt vaguely European, and warm, humid nights under the cover of wide leaved Magnolia trees made sleeping outdoors more pleasant than he could have hoped. The ocean, from land, was beautiful, and he spent many a crackling summer afternoon watching the waves pummel the shore.

But America was different than Europe. Nobody had patience for Toki’s broken English on this side of the Atlantic, especially since it wasn't broken with a normal foreign language like Spanish. He got the feeling that folks in Charleston weren’t keen on others, people who weren’t _from here_. 

In Charleston, not from Charleston, he was just a kid on the streets, offal, a fixture of the general condition of urbanism rather than an individual with potential and prospects, his entire life contained in a beaten guitar case and a fanny pack he'd swiped off a dumb tourist in Holland and filled with nothing remotely of use to anyone who mattered.

 

***

 

The sounds of amplified music caught Toki’s ear. He deviated from his regular nightly route around downtown – the one planned around when restaurants would be most likely to toss the remnants of first dinner service – to follow it.

What he found amused him thoroughly. A young man in baggy clothes and a white plastic mask concealing half his face moved his body as if possessed by a spinning top. Accompanying him were two bearded men who could have been twins, one on an accordion and the other on a synthesizer, and a skinny, frosty haired lady playing an odd upright stringed instrument with a long stick. He’d seen cellos and double basses and violins and fiddles, but this thing didn’t have a body.

He moved closer, face set to question, when the lady motioned him to her side.

“You play that thing or just carry it around?” Her eyes fixed on the guitar slung across his back. 

“You wants me play?” She took a beat to parse the accent, then shrugged.

“Plug in.”

 

Toki earned ten whole dollars that night playing absurdly upbeat dance music, enough to buy him his first meal stateside not comprised of what wealthier people threw away. 

Encouraged by the windfall, Toki made a point to inure himself to the local street performer scene in Charleston. Someone would let him borrow an amp from time to time, and while solo shredding definitely wasn’t the kind of folk song sing-along people were used to in the American South, when noise complaints didn’t shut him down, he managed to collect a few bucks here and there. 

Buskers taught him the many uses of the most versatile word in the English language – “fuck” – and demonstrated myriad ways to gain supplemental income. Nimble-fingered guitarists make the finest pickpockets, they explained. Suffice it to say, the fatter the tourist, the less likely he’d get noticed or chased down.

Honestly or dishonestly, Toki earned enough in Charleston to keep from starving outright. What little he was able to squirrel away he put toward bus fare farther south – where at least he figured it would be warm enough come winter that he wouldn’t freeze to death in the high likelihood he hadn’t a roof over his head by then.

 

***

 

After two months of mere survival, Toki was beginning to forget what he’d wanted out of coming to America. He was far enough in time and space from his father’s lash that safety from torture was no longer a palpable motivation. The only time he felt truly free was when his fingers danced along those worn wooden frets.

And even they were beginning to betray him. The high E string was long gone, and three or four frets were so rusted and loose he’d begun to skip those notes entirely.

 _What was really so bad about Norway?_ Toki thought in his darker moments, clutching a yellowing photo to his chest while he shivered through the rain, that perhaps a home populated by people who hated him but prayed for him, who beat him but fed him, that perhaps all of it was better than being free and alone. The threat of death was less terrifying than the certainty of it, and with each passing night, Toki grew closer in his confidence that the reaper would indeed meet him on these streets. 

But then someone or something would cross his path that gave him just enough hope to wish to see daybreak.

Tonight, it was a shiny black car.

  

Toki had made it as far south as a state called Georgia. He remembered the sign welcoming him because he could read it. In English. The ability, and the sentiment, felt nice. Like he was becoming something. What, he wasn’t sure.

The town was called Savannah, but it may as well have been Charleston. The pace was a little slower here, which meant so too was the public performance scene. There were no borrowed amplifiers or friendly peddlers willing to cut him in on their earnings in exchange for doing that thing he’d learned with his mouth on the crossing to America. There was starvation and desperation, in Savannah. 

So when the shiny black car rolled up, Toki didn’t expect much. When the window rolled down, he expected policemen with guns and the need to flee – just when he’d found a comfy bus stop to hole up for the night.

"Hey, kid."

Toki pointed questioningly at himself. 

"Well who the fuck else'd I be talking to? Wanna make some cash?" 

He'd been waiting months in this new country for a question like that. Nevermind that it came at one in the morning on a random street corner in downtown Savannah. The wad of bills with large numbers on them spoke for itself.

The fat man inside the car reeked of Paco Rabanne and rail whisky. Toki wasn't sure what either of those things were, but the combination wrinkled his nose as he tossed his guitar into the backseat, taking up the front for himself. A good look at the driver turned his stomach even further – the guy looked like Wilford Brimley pre-diabeetus, like one of those huge sea dogs with the long teeth and moustaches. _Hvalross._  

Mr. Hvalross yammered on about God knows what as he whisked Toki away from that dark corner. The young man picked up on words like "rich" and "important" though, before the conversation, such as it was, turned to Toki. 

"So, what's your deal, you run away from home?"

"Run away from home?" Toki parroted back to him. The walrus man stole a glance. Passing streetlights cast a devious glow on an already lecherous grin.

"Oh you're definitely not from around here, huh?"

Toki tried to ignore the meaty paw that worked its way from the armrest to his knee and slowly up his thigh the more Toki told the man about his new traveling companion.

Speaking of traveling, it occurred to Toki that they had been on the road for some time. They surely weren't in the same city anymore. What that meant geographically he hadn't a clue. He supposed the man wanted help getting back to the ocean, where he could reunite with his _hvalross_ cousins and swim off in search of the morning’s freshest catch. Where do walruses live, besides the ocean? Some place with ice, he thought, not sandy beaches.

"I said where you from, boy?"

Toki stared for a moment into the glimmering dashboard before he realized he was again being addressed. "Oh, Toki! I'ms Toki, nice to meet you."

Walrus Man arched a single brow at Toki’s grinning face before shaking his head, and they drove on in silence.

 

***

 

A rough shove roused Toki from his sleep. He hadn't meant to doze, wanted to keep an eye on this strange new employer, but the drive seemed endless, and frankly his body hadn’t rested on anything as comfortable as the car's reclining bucket seat for months.

His eyes focused to take in the destination. Toki couldn't help but be confused – and a little disappointed. Their hours-long drive terminated not at the sea, full of frolicking walruses, or even at a "rich, important" mansion, but in the broken asphalt parking lot of a one-story motel in Jacksonville, Florida.

Toki took a moment to sound it out, the words on the offensively bright neon sign. _Jack-son-vill-ee Sleep EZ._ But it did nothing at all to help him figure out where he was. Mr. Walrus didn’t seem overly keen on waiting for the boy to get his bearings, either, instead grasping him by the scruff of his shirt and shoving him toward one of the identical mud-colored doors.

The interior of the motel room was no more enlightening. Nondescript garments laid carelessly atop an unmade bed. The television was tuned to mostly static; Mr. Walrus Face switched it off irritably. 

But Toki was familiar with situations like these. It was what he was good at. He immediately set to work picking up soiled socks and garters, tossing them over his shoulder as he moved about the cramped space. A honking chortle over his shoulder disturbed him mid-clean.

“That’s not the kind of job I was talking about, kid.”

The _hvalross_ of a man shoved Toki to his knees, the pinch in his shoulder stirring a panicked memory to the surface. But this time there was the promise of cash, and a lot of it. Toki closed his eyes while the man’s booze-reeking fingers fumbled with his waistband before them. A soft pudge of flesh pressed against his lips, and after a moment Toki acquiesced.

 _This isn’t so bad. This isn’t so bad. This isn’t so bad._ It was his internal refrain in moments like this. There had been too many for him to count.

 _America is shit. America is shit. America is shit._ How quickly the chorus changed. He had to place a hand on the man's gut to hold it up and out of the way. _America is shit_. Anger will help to fight back the tears.

Shock gripped him along with a hand to the crown of his greasy mop of hair. So those enormous arms weren't all fat. With a single hand, the walrus-faced man whipped Toki up and back, flinging him onto the grimy bed. It was when the man’s booze-reeking fingers fumbled with _Toki’s_ waistband that the little foreigner began to panic.

A firm slap to his face, followed by a backhand, stilled Toki’s struggling. That feeling, too, was familiar.

“Listen you little fucker. You’re mine for the night. Don’t fucking fight me.”

 

Toki Wartooth had learned long ago how to divorce his mind from pain. He’d known more of it in one short lifetime than anyone could imagine. This was different. This pain. This pain was inside of him. He could not run from it, in mind or in body. He could do no more than stare unblinking at the water stains on the ceiling, than try to count the blades of the rickety fan as it twirled above him like a teasing guillotine. He could do no more than let the tears stream from his eyes as this blob of a man, this walrus whose name he did not know, split him open with little more than a palm full of spit to ease the way.

 

"Oh yeah you're a fresh one." Stale liquor and decay breathed into Toki's face. "You a virgin, huh? Ooh, fuck yeah can I pick ‘em. I'm so fuckin’ good. I’m a fucking CHAMP!"

Tears that etched their way through the dirt on Toki’s face dried in time, as this invader got off to his self congratulation. His jaw clenched tight as the sloppy pace increased and then stopped, the giant pinniped of a man collapsing onto him with a satisfied grunt.

"Woooo!" He had the audacity to let out a celebratory hoot while Toki suffocated under his mass.

The boy chanced a glance down at the slimy, balding mess atop him and sneered with disgust. He willed his stomach to cooperate until he could vomit in private; Tilly spared him the lesson, but he figured puking on the john would be ill-advised at best. Instead he squirmed impatiently, willing the man not to pass out on top of him. Hint taken, fortunately, Walrus rolled his heft off Toki, who immediately reached for his pants.

He willfully ignored the trickle of blood and semen dribbling down his leg as he pulled them on. Then turned to the blob and nudged him with a socked foot. There was business to attend to before this employer fell asleep.

"Okay, you pays Toki now." Toki hoped it sounded as transactional as he’d intended.

"What?"

Toki held out an open palm. "You pays to Toki money. For jobs."

The man laughed ruthlessly and heaved himself up to fetch his own clothes. He turned his back on the dumb foreigner, wobbling as he tried and failed to get a foot into his stained white briefs. "Get the fuck out kid."

Not understanding the last sentence, or not caring to, Toki expected that wad of cash to emerge from the pocket of the pants with which _hvalross_ was currently fussing. When it didn't, he caught the man's eye again, and repeated his request.

“Pays to Toki money now, please.” 

The walrus man whirled, enraged, and grasped Toki's outstretched hand, twisting it behind his back and slamming him into the front door. "I ain't gonna pay some fuckin’ French twink off the street for a lay."

He grasped the hair at the nape of Toki's neck and pulled back, sinking his teeth into the shell of Toki’s ear before smashing his forehead into the unforgiving door frame. And then the man's hands were down Toki's pants, again.

This time, the pain was too great for Toki to bear in silence. He cried out when the man entered him, lubricated only by the blood and cum left from moments earlier. Screams of agony and protest earned him a punch to the back of the head, after which he felt chubby fingers close around his windpipe.

"Shut the fuck up, goddamn slut, or I _will_ kill you."

There was only one word in that string of nonsense Toki needed to understand. Instead of paralyzing him into submission, the threat to Toki's life galvanized him to action. He flung his elbow out and back, connecting with the walrus man’s temple. It was enough to knock his oppressive weight away from Toki, who spun to face him. In an instant, muscles honed by years of grueling labor began to contract of their own will, sending fist after fist flying into the fleshy planes of the fat man’s face until there was little left recognizable as one.

Mr. Walrus lay on his back, gurgling on his own blood.

Satisfied he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon, Toki surveyed the room again. His surroundings looked completely different than they had just an hour ago. How fucking naïve he was back then. Now, Toki took his time searching for anything that may be of value. He reached into the man’s gigantic trousers for his wallet, extracting every last bill and tucking them neatly into his discarded fanny pack before securing it around his waist. Spotting the keys beside the TV, Toki grabbed them, too. He didn’t know the first thing about driving, but he couldn't leave his guitar behind. And besides, without keys, his attacker couldn’t give easy chase.

Toki ducked into the bathroom, avoiding the mirror, and shoved a handful of tissues down his pants, fighting the urge to wretch. He didn’t have time for that, yet.

As a last, piteous gesture, Toki toed the beaten walrus's chin, tipping his head onto its side so he wouldn’t choke on his own blood and die. Not that he didn't deserve to. 

Turning off the lights before he stepped back into the darkness, Toki crept toward the car. He wasn’t sure if anything that happened inside that room was overheard, but he didn’t want to chance being spotted by the wrong person. Right now, every person was the wrong person. 

The car was easy to identify. Among the handful in the lot, its tinted windows and gleaming black paint stood out like a sore thumb. Kind of like Toki. A second of fumbling revealed the correct key. Snubbing its nose at Toki's pains to remain clandestine, the bright, revealing overhead light lit his way as he rummaged the floors and interior compartments. Behind the passenger seat he found a half-eaten hoagie, which he thought nothing of tearing into. It had been a day and a half since he’d eaten.

Inside the glove box Toki found a gun. It was much shorter than the rifles he used in Norway, and he wasn’t convinced it could take down anything worth eating – or any potential threat, for that matter. So he chucked it down a storm drain and continued rummaging, tucking a map of northeastern Florida next to the bounty in his fanny pack. He was hesitant to press any button that may make noise – an inadvertent lean on the steering wheel produced a honk that nearly sent him out of his skin. But the little lever that indicated "Trunk" was fairly idiot proof, so he pulled on it, observing the effect in the rear view mirror.

What Toki found inside was the most frightening thing he’d seen since last he gazed the earthen walls of his punishment hole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things do get better for ol' Toki. I promise.


	6. Broken Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki gains clarity, and an unexpected traveling companion.

“ _Hvem er du_?” (1)

An incredibly dumb question to ask someone curled up in the trunk of a fancy black sedan with her hands and feet bound with zip ties. Especially to ask someone with a foul, bloody rag jammed into her mouth, gagging any possible response.

Toki noticed these things slowly, as the surprise wore off and alarm set in. The girl couldn’t be more than four or five years older than him. She stirred along with the clammy air inside the confined space, cracking one bruised, swollen eye to inspect the change.

A scruffy foreign face was not the one she’d expected to see, but the condition of her own could not betray fear, or even much surprise. Toki instinctively held up his hands to show he was no threat, forgetting for a moment they were covered in the blood of the man he suspected was their shared assailant.

“Fuck. _Beklager_.” (2) He reached down and whisked away the gag before she could even wince, wiping his hands on the filthy cotton. “I’ms ams Toki. Who are you?”

“Help me.”

Her feeble plea was enough to shake off his initial shock and reignite a sense of urgency; if he wasn’t dead, the fat walrus-faced man wouldn’t be down for much longer. Toki’s hands felt around the walls of the trunk for something to undo the girl’s restraints, cursing himself for not carrying a basic knife and cursing that fat asshole for being smart enough not to leave anything useful back here with her.

“Waits on,” he told her unnecessarily, remembering a piece of rigid metal that could possibly work. Toki dashed around to the driver’s side door, removing the keys and feeling out the sharpest one. A little elbow grease and a lot of sawing made short work of the two plastic ties.

Without a second thought, Toki hoisted the girl up into his arms and took off into the night.

***

The plan had been to find the source of traffic sounds Toki thought he’d heard from the parking lot. Not that strangers in cars were high on his list of potential saviors at the moment, but the likelihood was much higher of finding safety in a populated area along a street with cars than on the utterly desolate stretch of road they’d been traversing.

After 20 minutes of running full tilt Toki began to slow. He didn’t want to stop yet – they hadn’t made any turns since leaving the motel, and it would take nothing to catch up to them from there. But they weren’t being chased from what he could tell, and the guitar banging against his already sore backside rapidly grew intolerable.

Ducking down into a little ravine for cover, Toki unloaded his newly acquired cargo.

“Cans you, um, _gå_? Umm...” He pointed his fingers down in a “V” and scissored them to indicate walking. The girl nodded. She had still yet to speak another word, but Toki didn’t begrudge her silence.

Gingerly taking her own weight, the pair supported each other, picking their way through the ravine that ran parallel to the road until the first rays of the new day burned the night’s sky.

“Can we stop?”

“Um…” They had gotten no nearer to the traffic Toki was _so sure_ was nearby, but they did put several more miles between themselves and the motel and the half-dead villain therein. In the weak morning sunlight, Toki could finally get an idea of just how bad off this girl was: The tank top and running shorts she wore hung off her, as though her body had wasted away in their shell; the expanse of exposed flesh was nearly covered in scabs and bruises in various states of healing; and her face was frozen in an expression of both pain and sorrow.

If Toki had ever known his own reflection, he would recognize it in this girl.

How long had she been a prisoner of that man? When’s the last time she had a drink of water? When’s the last time she ate?

Toki remembered the corner of sandwich in his fanny pack, old and soggy but still edible, and handed it to her. She gave him a single look of thanks and bit into it, ignoring the blood dribbling from a reopened split lip to work through the first sustenance she’d had in who knows how long.

When she finished eating, much to Toki’s chagrin, his new charge promptly fell asleep. He’d gotten used to the company – however incoherent – and was pleased with the progress they’d made. At any rate, her slumbering form was hidden from the road, so he decided to take advantage of the burgeoning sunlight to get a bearing on his surroundings.

Directly opposite their makeshift campsite and stretching along the street in both directions for as long as he could see were massive mounds of grass-covered sand. Frowning, Toki dashed across the road and up one of the dunes.

The crashing waves of the Atlantic explained the traffic noise he’d heard all night but never found. A pang of nostalgia hit him at the sight. Not long ago he sat by the ocean in Charleston, admiring the relentless movement of the vast expanse of murky green. Now, it only meant he had one less option for directions to flee.

It was time to rouse the girl. “Angel,” she said upon waking. Toki knew the word; it had a fairly similar cognate in Norwegian. He just didn’t know what she meant. He was far from an angel. 

“It’s my name,” she shared in response to his confusion. “Or at least, you can call me Angel.”

“Oh! I’ms Toki. Nice to meets you.” It wasn’t, not under these circumstances, but he didn’t have the words to express all that.

“I’m not from here, either.” She didn’t expand. 

***

Angel turned out to be a more useful companion than Toki could have hoped. She interpreted his pilfered roadmap easily enough, navigating them via dinky commuter bus into downtown Jacksonville. 

The padded seats and relative safety of the bus’s back row gave the pair a decent enough place to sleep for the 90-minute ride into town proper. Toki was surprised by how comforted he was by Angel’s sheer presence. He hadn’t been near many women in his life, and his mother scarcely provided him the warmth and maternal air that he was only recently realizing he’d craved. Snuggled up together, two broken and abused seraphim, he also found that caring for someone else helped divorce him from his own suffering.

 

The slowing motion of the bus as it pulled into its station was enough to rouse Toki from a peaceful rest. But Angel didn’t wake as easily. In fact, she wasn’t waking at all.

“ _Engel?_ ” A disembodied moan was all Toki got in response. He shouldn’t have made her walk. He should have figured out how to power the car on his own. He should have stopped for food and water first…

Her sweaty brow and eyes rapidly darting beneath their lids snapped Toki out of his impending panic attack. Swinging his guitar over a shoulder, he bundled her gingerly into his arms again and ducked off the bus in search of help. But of course… he didn’t know where the hospital was. Angel was the one who’d read the map. She didn’t share the route with him.

“ _Sykehus?_ Um… _fæn!”_ (3) 

“Fifty.” The word eked out from somewhere beneath the matted mop of hair covering the girl’s battered face.

Toki’s mind raced with what it could possibly mean, until his eyes landed on the glaring orange LED number at the front of the bus they’d just departed. Taking a chance, he searched for the one with a “50” on it, hopped aboard, shoved a handful of change in the coffer beside the driver like he’d seen Angel do earlier.

“You need a transfer?” 

“ _Sykehus?_ ”

The driver looked the panicked boy and his shivering mate up and down. Fucking tweekers. But a fare is a fare.

“Or a hospital, I’m guessing?”

“’Hospital!’ _Ja!_ ”

***

It was an excruciating ride, all stops and starts. Every time the bus paused to let people off, Toki jumped to join the departures. The driver, in some small decency, held out his hand to keep Toki on board until they reached Memorial Hospital.

Further frustration met him when they arrived. Toki had never so much as seen a doctor, let alone been to a large modern medical facility before, but he figured a young woman in such obvious distress would immediately attract the appropriate personnel to his aid. Assistance only came when, fed up, Toki simply unloaded his cargo into the arms of an orderly – along with a litany of Nordic swears.

The young man in scrubs set her on a gurney, eyes widening almost imperceptibly when they landed on her face. A few urgent gesticulations summoned a whole squadron of important looking people in crisp white coats, and the girl named Angel was whisked away behind swinging double doors before Toki could take a second look.

He was pleased to she was getting attention. He really was. But an uncomfortable knot in his chest arose at being told he could not follow. A nurse inquired, with so much gesturing, whether he wanted some treatment for the bitten ear he’d completely forgotten about, but Toki waved her off. In fact, he’d forgotten about most of his aches and pains and cuts and abrasions in his effort to care for this more fragile creature.

Toki began to wonder obliquely why that was, when he noticed a couple of large men in dark uniforms and guns talking with the nurse he’d dismissed moments ago. Police. Police always meant trouble. He’d learned that lesson early in his American life.

When the nurse pointed them in his general direction, Toki knew it was time to go.

*** 

Alone again.

He wasn’t sure why it stung so bad this time. People had come into and gone out of his life with regularity since he left home last year. Some of them were good. Most of them weren’t. None of them had needed him like that girl in the trunk had.

It hit him like a ton of bricks. The feeling of being essential in someone else’s life. Of knowing that if he hadn’t happened upon her – if he hadn’t happened _to_ her – she might be dead right now. How crushingly novel it was.

Toki doubled over with the sensation, violent sobs wracking his entire body as salty tears spilled over grimy cheeks. He let himself cry this time, let it all out on an indiscriminate sidewalk in muggy Jacksonville, Florida. He didn’t mind the looks from passersby it engendered. It did not feel good, it was not cathartic, but it was necessary all the same. 

***

Toki lost track of the days. He slept under bus canopies when there were no streetlights nearby to betray him. Other nights he lay on bare pavement, exposed to the temperamental north Florida weather and not caring much about it. What was rain but a free bath, anyway.

He did have options. An inventory of his fanny pack revealed a wealth of American bills acquired from the fat rapist he beat half to death – six that said $100 and three that said $50, a handful of smaller bills and a bunch of coins. But he hadn’t totally got the hang of currency in this place, even after more than six months stateside. He hadn’t been around too much of it to get used to, anyway. Was a hundred U.S. Dollars a lot, like _guilder_ , or not, like _kroner_? One of the big bills got summarily rejected at a hot dog stand, so it couldn’t have been worth that much.

 

Irritated and hungry and aimless, Toki felt like he was back to square one. He was certain at one point he’d wound his way back to Lillehammer, somehow. But then, the tiny, cluttered music store he’d found himself before was decidedly more inviting than Drep Du Selv had been. And the weather was a lot nicer, too. And the sound emanating from within… it beckoned him like a pie cooling on a windowsill more than any black metal demo ever had.

Toki’s spirits lifted upon wandering into the little shop. It was crammed with used CDs and vinyls and old gear and apparel. There were tchotchkes hanging from the ceiling commemorating more bands than he ever knew existed. Melodic hard rock blared from a junky boom box in the corner. Toki began to drift closer to it, drawn by the sound and then by the image of five bona fide rock stars that loomed on a poster overhead, before he noticed a scruffy shopkeeper eyeing him from behind the counter.

“What the fuck are you doing here, kid?”

“I has money, I stays!” Toki stood as defiantly as he could muster. He was used to being kicked out.

But the proprietor merely chuckled. “Nah, I mean people only come to this shithole shop to unload their shithole gear or find some old LP that ain’t mainstream. You’re lookin’ ‘round like it’s the goddamn Louvre! So what are you doing, here?”

“I’ms Toki. Toki Wartooth. I’ms from Norway. Nice to meets you.”

“Uhh. Huh. I’m Gavin. You like Dethklok, eh?” Toki furrowed a brow at him. He understood half of that word… “Dethklok. It’s who we’re listening to right now. Florida’s finest unsigned band!” The shopkeep named Gavin tapped his ear and pointed at the boom box.

“Dethklok.” It’s all Toki said in response. It fit, in his mind: the sound that drew him into this store, the brutal tones playing out raw on the scratchy demo CD. It was the musical version of Toki Wartooth.

“Although I guess they’re not unsigned anymore,” the shopkeep continued. “My boys got themselves a record deal, can you believe it?!" Toki smiled politely. Yes, he could believe it.

“You play?” Gavin the shopkeep indicated Toki’s guitar, which Toki took to mean he wanted a bit of a show. He hadn’t played it in too long. It was in such depressingly awful shape. But Toki gave it a shot anyway, strumming through a few disconnected chords and wincing his way around some dead-fret arpeggios.

He sighed apologetically and moved to re-sheathe the old axe when Gavin held out a hand.

“Hey hey hey wait. Lemme take a look at that thing.”

Toki handed over the Flying V, noticing fully the front counter of the shop that was jury rigged into something of a workbench. Guitars in various states of repair sat behind the register, and tools and extra strings and all kinds of devices designed to make sad guitars sing again littered the surface.

“Why do you have a vintage Flying V anyway? Who the fuck are you?”

Toki had been faced with one existential question after another on his journey. He was only just beginning to recognize them as such – and ponder their greater answer, when he saw a crappy Xeroxed flyer attached to the big poster of Dethklok. Five shadowy men resembled the larger-than life ones above, only a giant red “X” drawn was across one of them. Toki knew, as he surreptitiously pulled it down from the wall, this flier was telling him something important.

“You wanna hear some shit?” Gavin waved off his own questions as he got to work snipping the worn old strings off Toki’s guitar. “That guy, the wannabe Malmsteen looking son’bitch with the douchebag beard, I hear they kicked him out of the band because he, no shit, stabbed Nathan Explosion right in the fucking back. Nathan Explosion, that's the front man, the big motherfucker in the middle there. Florida's own! Went to high school with him!”

He added that last part as though it were a unique mark of accomplishment. Toki looked at him dumbly. Gavin rolled his eyes, realizing Toki from Norway probably wasn’t picking up more than every third word, but when he got on a roll talking about the local music scene, it was hard to stop him.

“Anyways they're back in town looking for a new guitarist. Some suit asshole came in here the other day to post that flier you got in your pocket." Toki turned a subtle shade of red. "Don't worry kid, if you could make this beat up piece of shit Gibson sound that good, just think how it'll sound fixed up a little bit."

Toki was thunderstruck. "You t’inks... Toki sound good?"

"Sure, kid! You got loads of potential. Um... I mean, keep practicing and you'll get even better." Toki beamed. Such sure praise had rarely befallen his ears.

“So you never answered me. What brings you ‘round these parts? You gonna try out for Dethklok or what?”

“Uhm… I’ms Toki… I’ms froms Norway. I’ms comes to Americas to be…" This much was true. He came to America to exist – he ran away from home so he could simply be. Be what, he wasn't sure.

"I wants to plays guitar.”

It didn’t add much to the conversation, but it was the first time he said it out loud, the first time he even let himself think about what he truly wanted out of life apart from the essentials of escape and survive. So consumed he’d been for the last 18 months with merely staying alive that he hadn’t the time to dream. Now, though… something felt achingly tangible.

Gavin the guitar doctor returned the old Flying V to Toki’s hands, where it felt brand new. Toki ripped through a few unplugged licks, reveling in the difference in quality a little TLC could make, before he remembered now is when money usually exchanged hands. He pulled out a $50, having had no luck with the hundreds, but the shopkeep immediately waved him off.

“Look, Toki, I'll tell ya two things. First, don't flash that kinda cash round here. You're just asking for trouble." That's a word Toki definitely understood.

"Second, that audition is in two days. If I was you, I'd go find a cheap motel, someplace to get cleaned up and get a good meal in me and a decent night's rest at least. You get me?"

He did. He did indeed.

After some negotiating, Gavin reluctantly parted with his Dethklok demo and a Discman in exchange for 20 bucks and an invitation to Toki’s first big gig.

Toki made that a promise.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Who are you?  
> (2) Sorry.  
> (3) Hospital? Um… fuck!


	7. What's That Sound?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki has his first auditions. 
> 
> aka, The Duel Chapter.

A decent meal and a hot shower were in order. The Route 29 Motor Lodge provided one of those, at least.

Toki’s only experience with flophouses like these had been negative to say the least, but the price of $29.29 per night that burned in neon out front, even in broad daylight, fit his budget.

The lady at the front desk gave him a room for two nights in exchange for 84 dollars and 98 cents. Toki had never had formal schooling, but he was great with numbers, and those didn’t add up. Fees and taxes, the lady explained. And why don’t we round it up an even hundred, and I’ll throw in international calling at no additional expense, sounds like you have some folks back home might want to hear from you, eh son?

He didn’t have the capacity in English to protest, yet, as he parted with one of the big green bills.

 

Toki spent half an hour in front of the vending machine trying various combinations of coins with English written on them. There wasn’t anything decent about this meal, but he wound up with a respectable haul of the brightest colored snacks available – some expired Funyuns, a couple packs of Skittles, three surprisingly tasty bags of off-brand Cheetos, and a Raspberry Psychic Lemonade Fruitopia.

Toki was relieved to find the interior of the room didn’t remind him at all of the one he'd escaped farther north. This place had a relatively pleasant beach motif running throughout, with hues of blue and beige coloring the walls and pineapple-shaped lamps adorning the bedside tables. The soap in the bathroom even came in the shape of little shells.

For the first time in months, Toki felt himself relax. Standing under the scalding hot shower stream, his racing thoughts calmed, and his mind drifted to that girl, Angel. With a pang of guilt he wondered if she turned out okay. It had been a couple of days, maybe a week since he abandoned her at the hospital. How could he just leave her like that? But he’d gotten her there in the first place! But he left her with those cops… But cops are usually good for women, right? Women are the ones who call police. Men are the ones who get arrested by police…

The water grew tepid by the time Toki made up his mind. Angel was better off for knowing him, and then not knowing him anymore.

Now that he wasn’t surrounded by his own funk, Toki realized how horribly offensive his clothes smelled. How lucky he’d been in Amsterdam, where Tilly would just toss his meager belongings into the laundry with her things. Cleaning clothes wasn’t even one of his chores back home. This simple task was so completely foreign to him.

It wasn’t the labor or the stench that eventually overwhelmed him, but rather the flood of memories associated with every rip and tear and stubborn blood stain on his shirt and pants that drove the colorful assortment of snack foods out of his stomach and into the toilet bowl. 

Toki left the garments in a bath tub full of shampoo he would deal with tomorrow.

***

There was something about being naked in a bedroom, safe and warm and with no immediate threats or cares. Toki was exhausted, but that was more a permanent condition of his than any present concern. As his hand wandered south, his mind wandered to that singular lesson his caretaker in Amsterdam taught him.

He’d grown up a lot in the intervening months, and had begun to understand sex as raw sensation rather than concept. Half-naked girls like the ones in the red light district were more than titillating curiosity now that he – and his pituitary gland – had figured out what they were for. But through lack of opportunity or energy, he hadn’t explored these developments much over that time.

Now, though, as fist closed around stiffening penis, he couldn’t purge from his mind the images of similar anatomy attached to other men, forcing themselves on him against his will. Toki dry heaved, once, and shouted in anger, but also in frustration that there was nothing he could do about any of it.

So he reached for his guitar and played his fingers raw, careful not to break the skin if they were going to be in any shape for an audition the day after next, and fell asleep with the lights on.

*** 

Toki could always think better in the morning.

He rinsed and wrung his clothes, pleased with the fruity, floral smell they gave off now, and treated himself to a breakfast of leftover Skittles. His stomach protested; he’d need to venture out as soon as his clothes were remotely dry. For now, though, he’d give this TV a whirl.

Toki was no stranger to television; although his parents never owned one, he’d been permitted to watch a simple, innocuous children’s show with clowns and pink bunnies at the home of a parishioner when he went on house calls with his father. A crucifix was ever present in the background of that program, which in retrospect is why Toki figured he’d been allowed to watch, when so much TV is so very damning. 

But now that he was alone, he could watch as much of the damning variety as he liked. Flipping through the channels, Toki’s surfing stopped dead as soon as he saw her. The lower third read “HEIRESS RESCUED,” but those letters didn’t seem right. That wasn’t her name. Her name was Angel. And it looked like she was okay.

More importantly, it looked like that fat fuck who abducted her had been caught. A smile crept across Toki’s face as he took in the image of the man’s still bruised one, and his mind ran wild with fantasies of what he could do to that inhuman monster now that his hands and feet were bound by metal restraints. The marks on Toki’s back were evidence of his many options.

The images that had last night thwarted Toki’s efforts at self stimulation were replaced today by ones that rocketed him to a violent – and altogether satisfying – climax, twice over.

  

Checking out the next day, Toki begrudgingly handed over a $50 checkout fee; he had the distinct sense this bitch behind the counter was taking advantage of him, but things were looking up, and he wasn’t in the mood for anger. After she drew a crude map for him with directions to the audition venue on the back of his flier, Toki bid her adieu with a cheery, "Fuck you!" 

He was becoming a real American. 

***

Panic set in as the sun sank lower in the sky. Toki had been wandering for hours and yet seemed no nearer his destination. Had that nasty woman at the motel just been putting him on? Or was he screwing up, as usual…

This was the opportunity of a lifetime, and he was missing it. The giant digital clock on the corner read 4:04PM, two hours after auditions were scheduled to begin, one hour later than last time he’d passed it. Frustrated and with limited options, Toki decided to take off full tilt in the opposite direction. Maybe he’d been holding the map upside down. Maybe he didn't know how to read a map.

Something had to give.

At last, he happened upon what had to be the place. Soul-sucked guitarists streaming out of the faceless loading dock wasn’t the most encouraging sign, but it was a sign nonetheless. It had to be the place. It had to be. He just hoped they would still give him a shot.

After five solid minutes of banging at the door, it finally lifted open.

In person, these four men were larger than life. The utter necessity of being accepted by them struck him the moment he stepped inside. Knowledge of his purpose in life had been murky at best for his entire 16ish years of existence, but it all crystallized in this moment. In this very moment. The energy flowed through him, and he _knew_ this band, and all their future held, was his destiny too.

He just wasn’t sure they knew it.

Cap in hand, he begged the judgmental trio standing at the front of the stage, pleaded with the aloof guitarist reclining nonchalantly on a stack of cases. Skwisgaar Skwigelf rose to his full, intimidating height before addressing the newcomer, breeze from the open dock catching his golden hair in its lofty embrace. What he had to say wasn’t exactly welcoming. 

“You seems so nice. It’s a shames you must go downs this way.”

The glowing god picked up his guitar. So he wanted to play! Toki was encouraged for exactly half a second before the electrifying pick slide pierced the air. Before this blond Adonis launched into a solo fit for a king. The sheer _tone_ of the arpeggios was unlike anything Toki had heard before, nothing like he knew a human being was capable of playing. 

Toki didn’t know what to expect – he’d never been to an audition, after all – but it certainly wasn’t this. A little scared, a lot excited, the little Norwegian unsheathed his guitar on auto-pilot and parroted the riff right back. Jaws dropped to the floor at his effort, his ability to process what was thrown at him over and over again and form it into his own, moulding it with his own flavor and coloring it effortlessly with the raw brutality that in turn shaped him.

What began as a “Catch Me If You Can” duel of skill rapidly morphed into something more aggressive and more beautiful than anyone in the room could have dreamed. When the kid began battling back in his own right, Skwisgaar was forced to up his game – something he hadn’t had to do in any of the countless bands where he’d been a guitarist. As he muscled over lick after lick, the thought occurred to him that being the best meant beating the best – and he’d never even come close, until now.

Their guitars falling into sync threw him for another loop. The way this random kid from Norway predicted what the other man would play, the notes and scales and grounding rhythms dancing together – the only way to describe these harmonies was _natural_. Toki naturally understood chord progressions like none of the guitarists Skwisgaar played with had before, and certainly not like any of the dozens he’d summarily dismissed at auditions today. This kid _got it_ , with no pretension or apprehension, and what’s more, he pushed Skwisgaar to be better than he already was.

This could be a problem.

Breaking out into a sweat and a nasty progression, Skwisgaar had to put this thing to bed. He was the best. The fastest. The lead. Nobody would challenge him. Nobody could.

The kid faltered. Skwisgaar was satisfied. His crown was safe.

The three onlookers took the failure to mean Toki from Norway had lost. They had loved every minute of the duel. They saw what Skwisgaar saw. But a deal was a deal.

“It’s time for you to go,” said the one with a lisp.

 

To say he was heartbroken would be an understatement. Toki had set store by this dream panning out. He had never before allowed himself to believe in anything, to hope anything would work for him. Nothing ever had. Even escaping the torture chamber that was his ancestral home had led to nearly two years of suffering and hardship, with very few bright spots between. If he wasn’t wanted here, in this place where he _knew_ he had talent, where he was sure the skills he possessed were valuable, how could he be wanted anywhere?

How could he _be_ anywhere?

After a moment, Toki composed himself. He wouldn’t cry. Not in front of these men. He would just turn his back and go.

“But befores you leaves…”

The tall blond in his gleaming white outfit was waiting outside for him. He said something to him. Something confusing. With a smile.

Toki was wanted, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t tell you how many times I listened to and watched The Duel (and then played it over and over in my head) to figure out how to put words to it, and still couldn't do it justice. Brendon Small, you are a constant source of inspiration, God bless you sweet man.


	8. Prafectly Clear English

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Toki has a roof over his head and a purpose in life, the wisps of a new dream begin to form -- and the shape they take bears striking resemblance to the blond guitar god he's just met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the consensual part of Toki’s sex life commences. 
> 
> I should take this opportunity to discuss the time frame I'm working with, and by proxy, underage consent. In this story, Toki runs away from home at around 14 years old. By the time he joins Dethklok, a little over 2 years have passed, putting him around 16 or 17 years old. Working backwards from the start of the series, where I figure him to be mid-20s, this makes sense. So does Skwisgaar being 23ish in “Some Time Ago” which, again, I place at ~10 years before the start of the series. In Florida, that age gap is legal. In short, understand that here, Toki is old enough to say “Yes,” in case things like that bother you. If sex with persons under 18 is a problem for you, you may want to look away. As with similar points in this story, I've tried to veer away from smut -- although I've allowed this chapter to be more titillating than any other. Everything that happens here is important to the development of not just Toki's character but Skwisgaar's too (FYI you get a lil more Skwis POV here). 
> 
> All that said, this is a work of fiction, about a work of fiction, and as an author I retain poetic license. I have been stressing out about this, because I want this comm to be happy, but this is how the story goes. Please enjoy it!

The man in the suit who made him sign papers was named Charles Foster Offdensen.

Toki found that strange, an Offdensen without an accent. Americans are weird, he thought for the thousandth time, as he was formally introduced to a guy with the surname of Explosion, one called Murderface, and one who only went by Pickles – like herring.

Among this motley crew, Skwisgaar Skwigelf was the only person who made sense. 

Toki had never been across the border to Sweden, but odd distant Swedish relatives were known to visit his home outside Lillehammer from time to time, and they always spoke their odd distant relative language.

So beyond being the one who asked him to join this new family, Skwisgaar’s accent gave Toki the comfort of familiarity, and he found himself drawn to the man instantly.

Noticing this, or perhaps accepting that they were both foreign and both guitarists, Nathan Explosion summarily assigned Toki to Skwisgaar for just about everything. They would be roommates in the cramped 2-bedroom apartment they called "Mordhaus" – Murderface had to suck it up and move in with Pickles down the street, since the living room was their de facto practice space – and Skwisgaar would have to teach the kid some goddamn English for fucks sake.

“I’s knowings English!” Toki argued unconvincingly. 

“Ah it’s ams alrights littles Tokis, I takes you unders my flippers, teaches you de English and de guitars, _ja_?”

“I knows de guitars too!” Who did this blond asshole think he was, anyway?

“Look, you guys can save your dictionary fight for later. Right now, Toki needs to learn all your old rhythm parts, Skwisgaar. And, uh, I’m not gonna teach ‘em to him, so that’s on you.” Nathan Explosion saw himself as a tough but fair dictator.

“And he better get fucking good fast cos we’re in the studio in two weeks.”

***

Time was money. Yet another odd concept, since, for years, Toki had endless time and no money. Skwisgaar Skwigelf proved a harsh taskmaster, seeming to prefer negative reinforcement over positive feedback in his teaching technique.

For all the physical pain Toki had endured over the years, he hadn’t suffered much verbal abuse – save for biblical condemnations he didn’t take too seriously. Some of his new superior's criticisms shook him deeply; was he really terrible? Had he been kidding himself all this time? 

But when the whole band came together to rehearse, Toki saw the fruits of his effort pay off in the soaring melodies of his lead guitarist. Skwisgaar sounded better than that Magnus guy had on the demo CD, and they both improved from the beginning of a session to the end. Toki felt to the core the effect his music had on Skwisgaar’s, and that was enough to buoy him from the inside when the Swede tried to tear him down on the outside.

 

English lessons went about as well as guitar. Skwisgaar’s grasp of the language was middling at best, due mostly to a lack of desire to improve his vocabulary. Swears, musical terminology, and a few Camus translations – the basics were all he cared to know. But he nevertheless agreed to serve as little Toki’s walking Norwegian-(to Swedish)-to English dictionary, when he could stand it.

Ten minutes before Toki’s first live show, he could not. 

“How you says, _‘Det er på tide for showet’_?” (1)

“‘Toki ams dumbs dildoes.’”

“Skwisgaaaaaaar!”

“Tokiiiiiiiis!”

The Norwegian thought for a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot with raw energy while he watched Skwisgaar down the last of his pre-show beer, eyes transfixed by the rhythmic bob of his Adam’s apple.

“OK, den how you says, _‘Jeg har aldri vært så glad i mitt liv_ ’?”

“‘Toki ams…’” Skwisgaar paused his instinctive sneer as he parsed through Toki’s accent. The sentiment tugged at this nagging thing in his chest that had been acting up over the past few weeks, since around the time this kid showed up at that old practice space about a mile away.

“You says, ‘I has nevers been sos happies in my lifes.’”

  

The show itself was a blur. 

Toki recognized his friend from the music shop in the audience with a smile – he’d made sure to instruct Charles to hand deliver the concert promo flier to “Gavins at de littles musics store,” never mind that there were at least 50 “littles musics stores” in the greater Jacksonville area.

But his attention was focused on keeping up with Pickles’ bruising rhythm. The drummer played a half step faster live than he did in rehearsals, owing either to the adrenaline or the amphetamines.

He watched Murderface put to the test his newest gimmick – slap bass a la wang. Toki thought with a chuckle it would sound better if the guy’s dick were bigger, but the crowd seemed into it all the same.

He watched as a sea of people mimicked Nathan’s headbanging, regarding with only mild shock a young man who seemed to break his neck trying to match the front man’s brutality. 

And he watched with wonder as his lead guitarist and de facto mentor rolled through sweep after sweep, windmilling his long golden hair around in an arc through the rhythm sections and standing stock still, eyes closed, as his very heart sang into every solo.

In that moment, Toki dreamed a new dream. 

***

Every day Toki felt he was getting closer to this new intangible.

Recording sessions expanded on the high he experienced at that first show. Sure, they were more tedious and disconnected than playing with the whole band together, feeding off the vibe of a live audience, but he thrived on the knowledge he was building something amazing.

When Skwisgaar joined him in the booth to lay down duets, the feeling only intensified. Yet, he still couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, this new thing he wanted now that the basics of food and shelter seemed fairly well secure.

 

The guys didn’t often chill at the apartment they called Mordhaus. It was too confined a space for the kinds of debauchery they were capable of getting into, so Murderface, Nathan, and Pickles excused themselves to a dive bar shortly after recording finished for the day. But the flat worked fine for extra practice space, as far as Skwisgaar was concerned, and Toki needed all the help he could get, so they begged off party time.

Not that Toki minded. He wanted the Swede alone tonight, anyway.

  

“Okay, how you ams says de lyrics for ‘Face Fisteds’ in English?”

Skwisgaar inwardly congratulated himself for devising such an ingenious lesson plan. Teaching Toki English via Nathan’s relatively simplistic song lyrics, while he simultaneously learned and practiced the rhythm guitar parts, was killing two swans with a single boulder. 

So Toki played and barked the lyrics, interrupted periodically by a laugh at his efforts to mimic Nathan’s gravelly growl – and by a check for comprehension, like a good tutor would – while Skwisgaar sat back and sipped sherry. Toki wondered absently what it tasted like on his lips, then wondered why he wondered that.

“OK, no mores de songs. You tells to Toki somes t’ings in English.”

Skwisgaar held out his glass in taunting offer. Toki reached out before Skwisgaar withdrew and downed the rest of the fortified wine, smirking. He didn’t know why he did it.

“ _Ja, ja._ What’s you be wantin’s to know tonights? ‘Which ways to de ladies rooms?’”

Toki shook his head, ignoring or ignorant of the slight.

“How’s abouts… ‘ _Jeg trenger virkelig et nytt par sko_ ’?”

He’d developed an awful habit of sucking the levity out of a relaxed room. Or maybe he was always like this…

“It ams, ‘I’s reallies needs a new pairs of shoes.’”

“Ah! OK. ‘I’ms reallies needs a new pairs of shoes.’”

“A wholes news wardrobe I ams t’inkins…”

“'A wholes news wars-drolbe…’?”

“Ehm… don’ts worries ‘bouts it.” Skwisgaar wanted to ask how he could live for – he didn’t know how long this kid was on the streets, alone, homeless, surviving God knows what kind of weather and whatever other horror, and with just one set of clothes? Skwisgaar couldn’t go 12 hours without showering and changing at least once, more frequently if he’d made the acquaintance of a female or two.

The bums he invariably saw around the many cities he’d called home pushed carts full of every belonging they’d ever owned. They stunk to holy hell, but they were probably at least _warm_ under all those layers of shit-reeking garments. Toki had to have some kind of fortitude to make it all that time with just pants and mukluks and a threadbare t-shirt and that comical little hat…

Toki wasn’t sure what he’d said to make the other man fall silent. The slight frown on Skwisgaar’s brow concerned him. The increased proximity intrigued him.

“ _Du har vakkert hår_.”

This time Skwisgaar’s response was thrown off by an unexpectedly elegant Norwegian hand threading through the ends of his blond locks. 

“Um… ‘You has bee-yootifuls hair.’” 

The hand slowly worked its way to his scalp, combing through with each pass. Toki’s pale eyes bore into Skwisgaar’s as he let himself be pet. How much they must have seen.

“ _Jeg vil kysse deg._ ”

“’I… I wants to kiss you.’” The words were barely audible over the knot in his throat.

“ _Nå_.”

“Toki…?” 

“I don’ts t’ink dat’s right.”

Toki leaned in and pressed their lips together. He wasn’t sure what else to do; placing his other hand gently on Skwisgaar’s chest, he could tell by the thunderous rhythm beating below that this was enough, for now.

Skwisgaar didn’t pull away. He didn’t engage in the kiss, but he didn’t pull away. It was as though he was frozen in sexual limbo. Toki didn’t want to press the issue – he’d been on the receiving end of amorousness by force more times than he cared to remember – but he also knew if Skwisgaar was remotely interested (and available signs indicated he was), this was the moment. 

Toki withdrew his lips from Skwisgaar’s but left them mere millimeters away. His forehead rested against his counterpart’s, his hands still caressing chest and mane. The Swede’s quickened breath breezing his damp lips sent him reeling to the point of madness when firm, calloused fingers closed around his. 

"'Now.'"

Toki’s body responded to the open invitation before his brain could catch up. Mouth connected with mouth, body pressed into body, grips tightened reflexively as if to confirm the other man’s very physicality. Skwisgaar uttered a short, desperate moan into the kiss, sending a shock of reality into the Norwegian’s core. He never knew being this close to someone could be so affirming. He’d scarcely even experienced a touch of chaste affection; more likely, bodily contact with Toki Wartooth was painful or violate or both.

But this man’s thumb was stroking his cheek in time with the gentle probe of his tongue. His other hand trailed downward tentatively, haltingly, as though he were savoring the progress toward the younger man’s most delicate area. He was enjoying himself, and Toki was too, and that was new.

For his part, Skwisgaar couldn’t remember the last time he wanted something so badly. He didn’t know from where this desire stemmed; he’d never felt a physical attraction to another man to this degree. Perhaps because it wasn’t just physical…

Toki’s gentle breath as deceptively strong arms encircled him calmed his trembling hands, allowing his fingers to deftly unbutton those worn old pants. Skwisgaar quickly decided all those grungy clothes needed to go immediately, tearing and biting at the ratty shirt even as he fumbled with the shoes that so needed replacing.

And Toki let himself be manipulated. It wasn’t like the other times, he thought. It was so much better. _So much better._ So much better.

Hot lips against the thin cotton covering his crotch shook him from his reverie.

An audible gasp shook Skwisgaar from his.

“Does… You wants dis, _ja_? Because…” Unspoken yet communicated by the fingers that dug into the young man’s bare thighs was the end of that sentence. 

Toki could see the yearning in those bright blue eyes.

“Fucks yeah.”

***

Toki was sure he was going to die. He’d never felt anything like this before, never knew it was possible to feel anything like this, short of taking your last breath and passing on to the afterlife. 

Skwisgaar moved in a consistent, tortuously slow rhythm, leading with his tongue down, drawing in his cheeks, closing his eyes and bobbing unmercifully before slowing yet again.

Over and over he repeated this process. Toki had been reduced to mewling incoherence long ago; the raw passion in his reactions in fact had much to do with the Swede’s unbridled need to savor every moment. But it wasn’t to last much longer.

 

What an amazing difference it made for both parties to be engaged, Toki thought. Sex to this point in his life had been merely a service rendered by one person for the benefit of another. It’s what he discovered in Amsterdam, what he’d been forced to learn firsthand on the Atlantic crossing and in every encounter since. But this was so much better. _So much better._

So if whatever was happening right now did kill him, Toki decided, at least he could die with that deeply personal clarity at hand.

Of course, he didn’t take his last bow that night. It was nearly painful in its intensity, too many nerve endings firing all at once, but it was only a little death.

“ _Helvete!_ Skwisgaar!” He came with a start, and a scream. Skwisgaar just kept sucking, transfixed by the effect he had on the odd little Norwegian and, frankly, enjoying the flood of earthy flavor.

He made sure to extract every last delicious drop before pressing his lips to Toki, whose tired eyes flew open at the little surprise on his tongue. Needless to say he hadn’t an occasion to know what he tasted like, and it was riveting. Fingers dug into the back of Skwisgaar’s skull as his tongue searched for more, his enthusiasm a surprise in kind.

The Swede was flipped swiftly onto his back, that calming strength now decidedly more intimidating. Toki’s hands were frantic in ridding the man of his remaining garments, and manic eyes yearned for what they would reveal.

“Slows downs.”

“ _Knulle meg._ ”

Ordinarily such a request would be heeded without further ado, especially with hips grinding so enticingly against his, but Toki didn’t seem in a fully right state of mind. And unlike the faceless sluts that had been making his acquaintance after shows lately… Skwisgaar found he actually cared about this kid.

“Fuckings shit." The swear was not directed at anyone but himself. "Tokis—"

“Please!” 

Toki attacked his mouth with a kiss to suit the plea. But Skwisgaar held firm, working the hand he was dealt. Long, gangly arms pulled into a bear hug as Skwisgaar rolled them onto their sides, peppering every inch of the Norwegian’s face with delicate kisses. Diligently he kept at it, gradually letting one hand loose to tenderly paw the back of Toki’s head. The combination eventually dissolved the sexual aggression that had given him such concern moments earlier.

When finally Toki pulled back, he wanted to apologize. He didn’t know quite what came over him, apart from blinding desire. Proper bedroom behavior was still something of a mystery to him; he wondered obliquely how people, like Skwisgaar, figured this stuff out, and when, and how he possibly could have missed out on _so_ much, and what else he had left to learn. As he leaned into the hand stroking his head, Toki fervidly hoped Skwisgaar was still willing to teach him – and that he could muster the courage to verbalize how thankful he was for all the lessons thus far.

But then a better way to express his gratitude poked him in the leg. With a much softer kiss, he trailed the knuckles of his talented left hand down Skwisgaar’s torso, enjoying the little flinches and shivers the movement sparked in the other man, until fingers wrapped around the prize they sought.

Eyes widened almost imperceptibly – almost – at the handful. The proud smirk vanished from Skwisgaar’s face as Toki’s hand got to work, deftly jerking him back to full mast in a matter of seconds. The Norwegian pressed his elder gently onto his back, taking a moment to run his hands over Skwisgaar’s stomach and torso in reassurance before dipping his head below.

*** 

“Oh mine gods, Toki…”

Skwisgaar did not expect him to swallow. Frankly, he didn’t know what to expect. The kid – in his mind, and often to his face, he kept calling him a kid (although Toki had told Offdensen he was 18, without any sort of ID or official paperwork, and with such a baby face, Skwisgaar was fairly certain that was bullshit), but now that they’d had sexy time he should _probably_ make sure he wasn’t headed to jail in the morning, although without any sort of ID or official paperwork it’s not like the cops could make much of a case, and the kid’s parents were probably ten thousand miles away, or dead for all he knew…

“ _Ja_?” For the second time tonight, Toki’s bright tone of inquiry sent welcome ripples into Skwisgaar’s disturbing stream of consciousness. 

The Swede propped himself up on an elbow and looked over at the mousy-haired Nord beside him with a frown.

“Uhhhh… oh. Whats I does wrongs?” 

“Where de fucks how you learns to does dat sos goods!?”

Toki went red in the face, more at the praise than anything else. He could think of a few places, of course. But they didn’t stay front of mind too long. Not now. Not now that he was wrapped up in warm blankets on a comfortable enough mattress, snuggled next to a bedmate who wasn’t inclined to pay to kick him out.

Knowing nothing of Toki’s internal monologue, Skwisgaar softened at his external disposition.

“Neversmind. I goes takes showers. Bes rights backs.”

 

Skwisgaar planned to make Toki take a turn when he was done. He even shaved down his usual Half-Hour Power Shower to a lean 20 minutes to save some hot water. But that thing in his chest gave another aching twinge at the sight that lay before him when he returned to the room: Little Toki Wartooth, out like a light, dressed in an ancient pair of plaid pajamas, a gift from Mama Skwigelf Skwisgaar thought he’d duly buried in the back of the closet somewhere.

Yelling at the kid for rummaging through his belongings could wait 'til the morning. He couldn’t very well wake him to go clean up, could he? And it probably wasn’t the best idea to kick him out of bed to the sleeping bag he’d called home for the past several weeks, not now that he was warm and comfortable and so, so cute...

Skwisgaar shoved all those thoughts to the back of his mind like so much forgotten flannel, pressing his naked body to the sleeping form beside him.

***

In spite of Nathan Explosion’s arguments to the contrary – it’s not the right thing to do artistically; the album is supposed to be a whole experience, no skipping, no shuffling, and if you don’t listen to the whole thing at every sitting your guts will rain down in a storm of penance; I will murder you to death – “Guts Punch Balls Throw-up” went out as the band's first single.

Before they could blink, five young men went from aspiring metalheads to bona fide recording artists. Ones who quickly became familiar with the concept of “huge fucking royalty checks.”

“What the fuck, it’s just a bunch of zeroes!” William Murderface said in his barely intelligible lisp.

“Ah, if you look more carefully, Murderface, you’ll note a ‘one’ in front of those zeroes. That’s why in the middle line there it says, ‘one hundred thousand dollars and, uh, zero cents.’” The suit man must have a lot of patience to deal with these morons, Toki chuckled inwardly. 

“But ams dats a lots or nots a lots?” Toki inquired, totally serious. American money was still a thing of relative mystery to him.

The CFO named Charles Foster Offdensen took a calming breath and turned to Toki with a smile. “It’s a lot, Toki. Enough to buy a house, in some places.”

Toki’s whole demeanor lit up at that. In his hand, on this single piece of paper, he had the power to put a roof over his head… forever? He looked up in wonder at the spectacled suited man before his eyes flitted, briefly, over to Skwisgaar.

“Dens… cans I buys hoes news wars-drolbe?”

***

He had this sudden, intense urge to show Toki the world even he had only ever seen in dreams.

 

They all flew to Miami on a private jet – which they summarily trashed – to celebrate becoming hundred-thousandaires, and the first stop for Skwisgaar and Toki was Bergdorf Goodman.

Even at that fancy department store, the English lessons went on unabated. Skwisgaar would only let Toki buy something if he could tell him the name and color in English. Which is how Toki Wartooth wound up with a news wars-drolbe comprised of 20 “pant, brown?”, 20 “shirt, blue!” – “eh, ams mores a navies, I t’inks, but I lets yous haves it” – and 20 “boots, blacks, I knows blacks…”

When in Rome – or Bergdorf’s, at any rate – Skwisgaar figured, you may as well do a little shopping too, so he picked out a new ensemble for himself that better fit the (soon-to-be) most brutal death metal band on the planet. And, though he would never admit it, complemented that of his fellow guitarist. Greytones and a studded leather belt worked quite well, if he did say so himself.

Perusing the undergarments section made his palms uncomfortably sweaty. Not because the Swede preferred to go commando, although the idea of tight binding underwear usually did send him into a mild claustrophobic panic. Now, rather, it was lewd images of Toki’s cock twitching beneath the alluringly thin material of whatever boxer or brief he held up and named triumphantly that caused the flush to bloom up from beneath Skwisgaar’s collar.

Urgently he snatched the latest pair from Toki’s hand.

“You’s needings to tries dese on.”

He pushed a curious little Norwegian toward the nearest fitting room, instructing the handful of trailing roadie servants to stand guard at the door. You know, keep watch for paparazzi and all that.

Checking but at this point not really caring that the rest of the stalls were empty, Skwisgaar shoved Toki into one farthest from the entrance, latching the door behind him.

“Why’s you ams so pushings?” Toki’s face was still frozen in a scowl when pillowy lips met his. 

The kiss was feverish and unexpected, two things he’d come to accept about Skwisgaar. His own lust exploded like an atom bomb; two hands held Skwisgaar’s ass firm as he ground greedily against his hips.

Skwisgaar pulled back. He was always surprised at the kid’s evolving strength. It turned him on in a perverse way; Toki was ravenous, and he wondered in moments like this if Toki would just… if he just let him… 

“Toki.” The deliberately salacious whisper in his ear was enough to make the young man’s knees – and grip – go weak.

“Toki, listens to me very carefullies. I ams goings to eat you’s cock rights now, and den we ams goings to de hotels, and I am goings to fucks you, again, and again, all nights long, and we ams not leavin’s dat hotels unstil they drags us out dead to de woirld.”

In that moment, the roadie servants understood why they were paid so well.

***

Skwisgaar decided to take the gamble he’d been pondering in that dressing room earlier. 

They forfeited one of the rooms Charles had booked in exchange for an upgraded deluxe suite on one of the highest floors. If Offdensen or anyone else asked questions, Skwisgaar had a load of excuses about needing to practice, even on vacation – and Toki being a baby who couldn’t sleep alone – at the ready.

It was all he could do to keep his hands to himself until they were alone. Sharing an elevator with three burly roadies laden with their department store purchases was a poor decision. Toki’s body was pressed against his for lack of space, and, despite what these employees may have heard transpire in the dressing room, Skwisgaar thought it inappropriate to so much as peck him on the cheek, let alone mash the emergency stop button and pound his ass into the wall.

When at last they reached the 47th floor, those black-clad servants took an _eternity_ locating the closets and ensuring every pillow and sheet and complimentary bottle of champagne in the suite was to the liking of their masters.

“ _Ja!_ Now gets de fucks… ‘masters’? Whatsever, gets outs. I ams tireds.”

His annoyance abated at finding Toki in the great room, nose glued to the window, silly little cap in hand, peering down at the Technicolor world below. “ _Vi kan se hele havet herfra! Ser!”_ (2)

“ _Ja, ja_ , I sees it Tokis. But yous ams makings me look bad.” Skwisgaar approached with a false scowl, one tainted by licentious desire. Toki regarded him with concern. What _now?_  

“I ams de English teachers, _ja?”_

“ _Ja…_ ehm… yes.” Toki wasn’t certain what he was on about. They’d been practicing the language constantly. He thought in English. He _dreamt_ in English. Sure, he had a lot left to learn, but like the guitar, he’d say he was doing pretty goddamned well, thanks.

“Yes. And you ams still speakin’s de Norwegian, uh,” his eyes flicked toward Toki’s mouth, “tongue arounds me.” 

Oh. Was that Norsk? Toki flushed.

“Sos I makes you deal. Alls dis ams for yous.” His hand swept grandly around the luxurious suite and landed, pointedly, on his own chest. “Anyt’ing you wants does, we does. _Buts_ – we does ins English, _ja?_ Ands I gives to you de quizzes, and if you don’ts do goods, den you don’ts gets no treats.” His hand swept grandly down his body and landed, pointedly, on his waistband.

Toki’s eyes followed the trail the hand led as he processed the offer. It was tempting, to be sure. But he got hung up on one thing.

“All dis… ams for me?”

It was an overwhelming gesture greater than the underlying promise of sex – a fraught act in itself, the gravity of which Skwisgaar had no way of knowing and which Toki barely understood himself. As Toki took another glance down 500 feet to the gleaming white beach below, the crystal blue water, colors mirrored in the flesh and irises of the man standing before him, he saw the potential abatement of lifelong feelings of inadequacy and utter worthlessness.

It had been building for a while, actually, this sense of being wanted and valued. Everything he needed _so badly_ right now, had needed so badly for more than 17 years and would continue to need until the day he died, was embodied in this man, standing in front of him in a hotel room 47 stories above Miami, Florida.

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Skwisgaar, pressing their chests together, their hearts, willing him to _feel_ how ecstatically grateful he was.

After a second of shock, Skwisgaar joined the hug. He didn’t mean to be so nice to the kid. It honestly, genuinely wasn’t his intention; he just evidently couldn't help it. He didn’t know how to intend to be nice. It was foreign to him. It made him feel like crying, and it made him feel like smiling. It made him feel.

But before long, Toki’s gentle embrace devolved into something beyond chaste gratitude. The tuneless rhythm he’d been swaying their bodies to took on a raunchier tone as he began grinding his hips into the other man’s, picking up where he left off earlier. 

“So what’s you wants, littles Toki?” Skwisgaar whispered into the crown of soft hair, fighting against his urge to strip the kid bare and fuck him right there against the window for all to see.

_I want to hold you down and fuck you until you beg me to stop and then I want to keep fucking you until you can’t see through your tears._

That wasn’t right. It’s all he knew. But it wasn’t right. And it definitely wasn’t what he wanted.

Choosing his English carefully, Toki tried to put his deeply affected need into words.

“I wants to has de sex wit you,” he opened, haltingly, before pulling back and looking up into heavy lidded eyes. Toki frowned and thought about the dynamics of it for a moment. “I wants to fucks you. Toki nevers fucks no ones.”

He didn’t know how to tell Skwisgaar about what happened to him, about any or all of it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to; he didn’t really care to say the words out loud to himself.

“And… I wants you… I needs to feels you insides me. _Vær så_ – please.”

Skwisgaar was taken aback but turned on nevertheless. So the kid wanted it all. He could easily accommodate the second act. The first part – well, how hard could it be? Gay guys did it all the time, right? He was no stranger to tongues and fingers, after all, but they were exclusively of the feminine persuasion. He wondered with a shudder of delight what rough masculine digits would feel like, what a dick would feel like…

“Alrights.”

 

Toki was on him in an instant, pushing his tongue past those pouty lips and his body into full unadulterated contact. Shed clothes led a guilty trail from the antechamber to the nearest bedroom – if anyone were looking. For all these two knew, the rest of the band were out day drinking and picking up cheap sluts in South Beach, and that was just as well. 

But once he had the door closed and Skwisgaar naked before him, Toki became paralyzed by stage fright. The Swede’s bare flesh was intimidating in its unblemished pallor, yet painfully alluring.

The trepidation was obvious, even to a dense pituitarial Neanderthal like Skwisgaar. Gone was the voracious horny teenager who ripped his old white tank in half just moments ago. In his place stood a nervous little boy who needed some guidance, and who would assuredly be Skwisgaar’s ruin.

“Comes here, littles Toki.” The diminutive was instinctual, but he immediately regretted using it; he was already trying to keep his mind out of the gutter, and his corpus out of habeas. 

Toki didn’t seem to notice, anyway. His deep sigh at the contact with Skwisgaar’s outstretched hand constricted into a gasp at the contact with Skwisgaar’s stiffening dick. The elder couldn’t resist a smirk at the reaction as he guided Toki’s hand down his shaft, up over the head, down again, a little firmer now.

“Dat’s it,” he breathed into the Norwegian’s ear, abandoning Toki's hand in favor of something more pleasurable. 

There the two stood, slowly stroking each other, kissing each other, illuminated only by waning sunlight bleeding around the shutters, casting them in a silhouette that would have been comical to them both only weeks earlier.

Rough hands suddenly closed on Skwisgaar’s midsection, evoking a squeal of surprise or laughter or something else shocking and overly effeminate in equal measure. Toki looked up at the beet-red face; that was not his intention, but now that he _knew_ Skwisgaar was ticklish…

“Don’ts you fuckings dare—” 

This time the angelic expression on Toki's face was entirely feigned. It was for the best. The mood in the room was entirely too serious. They needed some levity.

"TOKIIIIIhehehehehehehehe!!!" Toki's fingers were fast in their work. Skwisgaar tried to remain stoic, but the giggling was reflexive. Skwisgaar tried to escape, but that deceptive strength in the younger man limited his flight path to the bed, where Toki gave willing chase. 

"Okay, enoughs!" Skwisgaar was laughing and kicking and swatting halfheartedly at Toki's hands, which had finally begun to show mercy.

 _His smile is fucking radiant_ , Toki thought, taking advantage of his proximity to the Swede to straddle his hips.

 _His smile is fucking radiant_ , Skwisgaar thought, as the beaten down boy from Norway climbed on top of him.

"Waits a second." The teacher twisted his body to the side, still giggling, stretching to reach one of the nightstands he'd given those roadie minions strict instructions to stock with—

"Ahh. Okay. Dis ams lubes. Makes t'ings, uh, move more easies. De ladies loves it. But we amment's ladies! But we uses it anyways…" He didn't know why he was having such a hard time explaining this shit. He had sex like regular people drank water! That nagging thing in his chest was weighing the room down again, and he wasn't a fan. The only heavy Skwisgaar liked was metal.

Giving up the narrated tutorial, Skwisgaar just squeezed a dollop of the stuff into his hand, warming it for a second before gently placing his palm atop the head of Toki's dick.

"Ohh…" Toki breathed, thrusting subtly into the loose, tingling fist. Until it closed tightly around him.

"Ams you ready?" The Norwegian nodded feverishly as Skwisgaar shifted beneath him, spreading his legs wide and trying to ignore the thundering heartbeat that threatened to break his ribs apart.

Guided by Skwisgaar's hand, Toki positioned himself at the threshold and pushed forward.

Nothing happened. They looked at each other blankly, each expecting the other to offer a solution. Skwisgaar wracked his encyclopedia of past experience. Girls who'd let him try the back door were usually well travelled in that area. They were _usually_ the ones who suggested he come knocking in the first place.

He was in virgin territory, in every sense of the word.

"Tries again."

Taking a deep breath, emptying his mind of lingering worries about pain and reputation, yielded a modicum of success. 

"Oh fucks!" Breaching the intimate space of another for the first time, Toki nearly lost himself. He wanted so badly to plow into this body, to fuck to his heart's content. But a combination of acute memory and resistance stayed his hand.

"Yous ams okays?"

 _That's a great question._ There weren't adequate words to provide an answer, not that speaking was especially practical in this moment. So Skwisgaar simply grabbed his face and pulled it toward his own, biting at his lips and lapping at his tongue and relishing in the sheer closeness. 

When eventually he relaxed, putting aside thoughts of "Maybe we should've worked up to this" and "Holy shit I'm never going to be able to walk or sit or stand ever again," he found the sensation of Toki inside him quite pleasant. For all the strength the kid possessed, for all the raw youthful energy, Skwisgaar was surprised by how tender a lover he was. His movements were fluid and graceful; he couldn't believe Toki was a virgin. Compared to his own jerky, greedy, uncoordinated first time, Toki seemed like an old pro.

Of course, Skwisgaar had no way of knowing that Toki was working against countervailing experience. What he did now, every roll of his hips, every grasp of pale hair or flesh was an action diametrically opposed to what he had endured in Skwisgaar's position all those months ago. Harsh memories contributed to his stamina; he wished they wouldn't.

Skwisgaar sighed placidly, content to lie back and let Toki fuck out his virginity. Until a slight shift of position brought the next thrust across a bundle of nerves that set his lower body on fire.

"WhaaAA!?" Still, no words. None coherent, at any rate.

Taking the cue, Toki focused his coasting pace on finding that spot again, the one that made his senior shout out like a madman.

"Eeee GAH!" Toki marveled as Skwisgaar's hips bucked reflexively upward. He grabbed them, held them, biceps bulging impressively with the effort to maintain the beautiful new angle. 

"Oh Gods! _Ja!_ Fuck me! _Fuck me, Toki_ please, please—" Skwisgaar bit his lip in effort to shut the fuck up. This was beyond anything he'd anticipated, beyond what he'd thought possible, beyond that comparatively juvenile experience he'd had with teasing groupies and their weak girlish efforts, and his reaction surprised him.

It was only when he felt the flame build to an inferno that he made conscious effort to pull himself back from the brink, in deference to Toki's progress. Teeth worried the loose skin on his lower lip and eyes fixed on the face above, waiting, wanting.

His patience wouldn't be tested.

Watching this god of a man become so thoroughly undone by his touch had affected Toki in kind.

“Skwisgaar… Skwisgaar I’ms...”

The Swede could do no more than feverishly nod his approval. Toki dutifully increased the pace of his thrusting, hips pounding out a cacophonous rhythm as his partner loudly sang their praise. Now that he was close, now that they were both so close, he could let go. 

The orgasm was unlike any of the thousands he'd experienced before. This much he could say for certain. Skwisgaar's entire body tensed as he came, pelvic floor spasming violently as his legs shook. He wanted desperately to watch Toki's face, but he could register nothing beyond the inside of his eyelids and the raw, blissful, warm sensation radiating out from his core. The room could be frozen in a block of ice right now and he would be none the wiser.

A guttural moan cut through his euphoria, bringing him somewhere closer to the land of the living.

" _Helvete! Min Gud!_ " Toki's body quaked then stilled above him, before the entire mass of young Norwegian collapsed onto his sticky chest.

They lay in this position for barely a minute before Skwisgaar gave the hair he'd begun petting a firm tug. 

Uh oh. That look again. 

"What's I does now?"

"Wells Tokis, dat was good. Not greats." Skwisgaar regarded him with that odd post-coital expression of wry disappointment. Toki could never tell if he was serious or not. It was starting to get annoying.

"Next time you comes like that I expects it to bes in English. Lankwich ams emoshgunal." He had the audacity to waggle a finger at Toki. Gorgeous skinny prick. "I t’inks you maybes just needs mores practice."

Toki paused to consider the feedback. Consider his options. Consider biting the finger that tapped his nose.

"'Skwisgaar' amn'ts English."

***

From this angle, he seemed so incredibly small. 

Much as he enjoyed cuddling in the cummy afterglow of a mind-blowing romp, Skwisgaar Skwigelf could only go so long without a shower. Cleanliness was next to godliness, and Skwisgaar was a god, after all. He'd all but dragged the sleepy little Wartooth out of bed to one of the suite's other bathrooms – being clean only served a purpose insofar as those around you maintained your pristine bubble – and Toki's rudimentary routine returned him to a snuggly spot under fresh sheets in a new bed well before Skwisgaar had finished.

In the California King – twice as large as any scuzzy futon they slept on in Jacksonville – curled away from the door, he looked like a scared kid hiding in mom and dad's bed. Skwisgaar's idiot dick couldn't help but twitch at the bare expanse of skin that faced him, terminating suggestively at the crisp white cotton just covering the crack of his ass. Whatever. He was already going to hell.

But there was something else. As he drew nearer, he saw it. How could he not have noticed before? The deep, red gash that ran across Toki's back from between his shoulder blades to just above his left kidney stopped him cold. _I couldn't have scratched him that badly_ , he thought in idiot panic, glancing briefly at stubby fingernails that had indeed left no marks of passion on the boy. 

What the fuck happened? How long had it been there? Who _did_ give it to him?

Skwisgaar was in bed with his lips pressed to the scar's angry edge before Toki even noticed he had company.

"Skwisgaar—?" 

"Shhh." An inexplicable rage welled up from that place in his chest that had been twinging for weeks. This was done intentionally, a mark designed for someone like Skwisgaar to see. He threaded an arm under Toki's shuddering body and held firm, kisses trailing delicate sweep of fingertips down the gnarled flesh.

"Skwisgaar, please."

Closer inspection revealed yet more scars, little white ones and larger red ones committed to his flesh by at least one sick individual and myriad apparatuses.

He had no right to ask. There was nothing he could do about it. Still. "Who dids dis to you?"

God.

" _Far_." (3)

Taking it into both of his, Toki unspooled the fingers of the hand Skwisgaar had clenched to his chest.

"Ams okay."

"Ams not." 

"Is why I runs away froms Norway. Is why I ams in Dethklok." Skwisgaar could hear a smile through the tears. He breathed deeply against Toki's shoulder, ceding him the point. 

This conversation was far from over. But for now, Toki's mouth against his fingertips would have the last word.

*** 

For their second romp, Toki bit his tongue, not exclusively in adherence to his senior's admonition.

He was deep in his own thoughts as Skwisgaar rocked into him, chest still pressed to back, lying on their sides in the massive bed like two spoons in a bare cupboard. And he relished what he could observe in his silence. All the tiny sounds Skwisgaar made, the sighs and involuntary whimpers into his ear, the shocked cries of unadulterated pleasure, the pleas for Toki's body, he could hear them loud as an amplified axe the quieter he remained.

Experience proved useful this go 'round; Skwisgaar took time to work him open, marveling at the sensation as tender muscles clenched and released around his fingers. By the time he'd worked in a third, wondering in silent thrill whether the kid could take a fourth and fifth, Toki was already reaching back for the real thing.

Much as he'd wanted it, or thought he'd wanted it, Toki wasn't sure he liked the intrusion. The slide of Skwisgaar's dick inside him was pleasant enough, once he got over the initial shock and expected discomfort, but he realized he'd been more excited by the _idea_ of this man sharing his space so intimately than by the actual movement.

Where was that eye-popping moment of pure bliss that Skwisgaar had had when Toki was on top? Was he not capable of feeling it? Did he not have that same spot inside him?

Had it been broken by the walrus-faced man who treated him so callously?

Tears streaming silently down his cheeks made Toki grateful for their current position. "Harder."

"Shh, Toki." 

"Fucks me!" Toki's voice cracked so sharply it was a wonder his entire body didn't split in two. The motions behind him ground to a halt as Skwisgaar peered over his shoulder.

"What's ams wrongs wit you?"

"Not'ings, just fucks me, please."

Toki's efforts to bury his face in the mountain of pillows betrayed him. Even in the dim evening light, Skwisgaar could make out the wet spot on the fabric.

"Ams you cryings?!" He loomed over the kid, pulling out in a panic. He'd ruined him. He was sure. What kind of fucking piece of shit was he anyway…

Toki smiled up at him, wiping his eyes with the back of a hand. Such concern on those angelic Swedish features. Even if something was broken inside, they could maybe try to fix it, together.

"I's okay. Is just, last times…" He still wasn't ready to open that can of worms. "Eh, I t'inks maybe I just likes bein's on top more."

Skwisgaar's features contorted into a Cheshire cat grin.

"You wants bes on tops?" He rolled flat onto his back, knees bent, stroking himself. "Den gets on tops." Toki puzzled out what he meant with a flush of red to his face, then scrabbled over to straddle his senior.

"Dat's right. Sits on it."

The Norwegian complied, mouth dropping open the deeper he went. This was so much better. _So much better_. His head lolled over one shoulder as he began raising himself up and down, up and down, in control and yet utterly wild. 

Something delightful had just begun to build when he felt a hand close over his dick, pumping furiously. 

Skwisgaar's eyes were two orbs of pure animal lust, and they were locked on Toki's.

"Come for me, Toki." 

He realized, then, fleetingly, that he hadn't inquired exactly what was meant by "come" in this situation. The Swede's tone and relentless motions provided useful context. 

"Skwisgaa--?" 

His third climax in as many hours was unique in its own way. Never before had he experienced such intense currents of pleasure ripping through him, deep inside, even as he spilled outward. One round of bucking, as Skwisgaar reached his end below, and Toki collapsed forward, a mirror of their earlier position. Only this time the exhausted boy clung to his elder as though he were his only anchor to this earth.

"Don'ts lets me go." 

Skwisgaar Skwigelf was surprised by how constantly surprising Toki Wartooth was.

"I…" His arms closed reflexively around the panting, trembling being above. As fingers found the nasty ridge of flesh, his lips formed a promise he knew he couldn't trust himself to keep. "I won'ts, Toki. I won'ts."

*** 

A brief examination in the bathroom mirror late the following day revealed evidence more damning than a bloody glove: bite marks and scratches and hickies and just-fucked hair that wouldn't straighten out no matter how much they brushed. Skwisgaar gave up and tied his blond mop into a messy bun, cursing the cheap hotel conditioner as he settled in to the in-room Jacuzzi.

This superstardom thing definitely had its perks. 

"How's you feels?"

"Dis ams reals nice!" Toki let himself sink deeper into the water opposite Skwisgaar, hot jets soothing a thoroughly tested young body.

Skwisgaar fought the urge to roll his eyes. It was becoming increasingly difficult with this kid and his cloyingly sweet – and seemingly deliberate – naiveté.

"Ja it ams. But I means how ams you... wit' everything... what's we does last night?"

"Oh." Toki's eyes grew moony, a calm, contemplative grin spreading across his features. If he didn't know better, Skwisgaar could've sworn he was blushing. Must be the hot water.

"Dat ams reals nice too." Toki demurred a moment, wondering if he should or even could go into detail about the cacophony of emotions and raw sensation that still coursed through his being. 

"I t'ink I prefers you bein's de ladies doh."

Skwisgaar's flush had nothing to do with hot water.

**"I AM NOT A LADY!"**

The Swede beat his fists into the bath like a petulant child, splashing water up and over the sides and onto the startled Norwegian before him.

"Jeez okay!" Toki held up two wrinkly hands in submission. "All-d'oh... you do's gots reallies beautifuls hair like de ladies—"

" _Toki_..."

"—and you ams tickles likes ladies—"

"I swear to God..."

"—and you does, um, how you says ' _raserianfall'_ in English?" (4)

He sprang out of the tub like a water beast hunting its prey, seizing the giggling Norwegian with two slippery arms and dragging him back into the depths. 

Toki beat on Skwisgaar's leg for mercy, challenging as it was to simultaneously laugh and hold his breath. The Swede eventually acquiesced, glaring menacingly into the grinning, sputtering face before him. 

"Ams not a lady."

"I knows," Toki coughed. "Ladies don'ts gots de real big dick like what's you got." In the minute fracas Toki had gotten ahold of that favored appendage, sidling up beside Skwisgaar as he began to stroke it to life. 

Much as he wanted to remain sour, Skwisgaar couldn't protest the attention. Toki made short work of his orgasm, smirking with superiority and newfound confidence that had only grown the more time he spent with this man.

"Mine gods, Toki…" Skwisgaar sighed, pawing dazedly at wandering hands. "I t'inks we gots one beds left."

"Neh, I's kinda sore." Toki shrugged, sloshing away to the far end of the tub again. He cocked his head, deep thought playing out across his simple features. "Maybe I can has de guitar solos instead?"

If Toki had learned anything in more than two years on his own, it definitely wasn't English from Skwisgaar. People who had the power to give you what you want could be persuaded if you had something _they_ wanted.

But Skwisgaar was having none of it. His jaw nearly dropped at the sheer nerve of this kid. A few admittedly earth-shattering tangles in the sheets (and in the tub, and the fitting room, a couple of bathroom stalls, that one quick handy in the parking lot outside Charles' office…) and he was trying to horn in on Skwisgaar's territory?

"Heh heh, fucks off littles Toki." Skwisgaar rose to his full height, six feet of bare, glistening porcelain skin practically designed to intimidate. "I am de leads guitarist. Ends of disgusgion."

Certainly not, if Toki had anything to say about it, and that he did. But he could wait. Toki was good at waiting.

***

Five sore, hungover husks of men reconvened at the general aviation airport south of Miami the next morning. 

In reality, it was two in the afternoon, but when one rolled out of bed at _one_ in the afternoon, two felt like the ass crack of dawn. Thank the rock gods for late checkout.

"Whats you guys gets up to?" Skwisgaar said by way of greeting. 

"Me and Nathan hit this Cuban club, right, rum and sluts like you would not believe." Pickles the Drummer raved about some kind of "gin-you-wine" Cuban cigar laced with crack cocaine that he'd "gifted" to Murderface. Which would explain the bassist's current walking comatose condition.

"Like the new duds, man!" Pickles gave Toki's hair an affectionate scruff through his hat, with which he'd been unwilling to part, at least not yet. "Looks like you two got up to some pretty wild shit too, eh?" 

"Oh yeah, Skwisgaar founds me great big sluts, talls and blonds and everyt'ing!" The Swede tried his best not to look affronted. Toki noticed. Toki was staring right at him. "A reals freak, too, he _loveds_ it in de ass—"

"Uhh… 'he'?" Murderface's hypersensitive gaydar finally clued in through the haze.

 _The fucking balls on this little shit_. "Tokis mean, 'she,'" Skwisgaar said through gritted teeth. "Him's English is ams dildoes."

"I guess my teachers is ams dildoes." Toki shrugged with a smile as he boarded the plane, content in the chorus of laughter his dig earned from these newfound brothers.

He could get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) It’s showtime!  
> (2) We can see the whole ocean from here! Look!  
> (3) Father.  
> (4) Tantrum


	9. I Believe (Coda)

No album in the history of record sales had gone pentuple platinum in its first week.

No album, that is, until the “Dethalbum.”

In an era of alt rock and boy bands, the feat was especially miraculous, and the world embraced Dethklok as a cultural phenomenon unlike any musical act or movie star or famous tartlet who was famous for being famous.

Toki Wartooth, teenage runaway, kid on the streets, became a multi-millionaire literally overnight. All of the physical and psychic scars that ran deep through him were still there in the morning, but so too was the promise of a future that would not leave any more.

He watched as a veritable army of roadie servants – someone decided to dub them Klokateers, which he could never pronounce – built a literal castle for them to call home, the Mordhaus Nathan and Pickles and Murderface and Skwisgaar had pretended to see in their crappy little apartment come to life. 

Toki, however, didn't care for the largesse. He was pleased just to have a space all his own, a little room that fit a bed – a real bed, not a canvas bag stuffed with straw and fleas, not a dusty couch or slab of concrete. It took some getting used to, not having to ask permission to turn the lights on, not excusing himself to use the bathroom or confining himself and his worldly possessions to three square feet of bedroom floor. But Toki could breathe, and that's all he ever really wanted.

 

At first that was all it was, the reason he didn't visit Skwisgaar after the new house was complete. He relished too much the idea of his very own room to spend appreciable time in someone else's. Skwisgaar had made his continued desire for the young man known, in his own way. Savage insults and derision were the best way he knew to communicate affection and need. But Toki knew others, and he declined, though not in so many words, to share his bed with the sort of person Skwisgaar had become – and probably always was.

The few sweaty nights they'd spent together, calling out for God and present company, helped in their way to dislodge and repair painful memories Toki had made on his road to Dethklok, and for that he would be eternally grateful to the Swede – not that he could ever know.

Eventually the trickle of female faces that frequented the lead guitarist's quarters began to flow in earnest, and Toki figured without pressing the matter further Skwisgaar had found the companionship he needed.

Which is why he was surprised to find, one night after a slog of a band practice, another body in his bed. Only this one was about 10 inches tall, covered in velvety fur, with an adorable fuzzy face and a long, pointed tail.

_"Hej mitt namn är Deady Bear!"_

There was no signature on the little note taped to the stuffed bear's head, but if the Secret Santa was hoping for anonymity, writing it in Swedish was probably not the best decision. Toki smiled as he tucked the note carefully between two books on the shelf behind his bed and climbed in with this new bedmate clutched firmly to his chest.

Toki marveled, for a second, at the notion. It would never get old.

His bed.

He was home.

 

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO MUCH for reading and giving me all the feedback and sweet notes! This was my first multi-chapter, and I loved and agonized over every word of it. I am @calliopinot on Tumblr; hmu if you wanna talk about this story or writing or the show or anything else!


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